Let’s consider the shaping power of the indwelling Christ. Christianity is Christ. He came not only to save us from our sins, but to be an indwelling presence to shape us into his likeness. He is not to be an infrequent guest, one we invite only to share special occasions.

The primary dynamic of the Christian life is abiding in Christ. Spiritual formation is “the dynamic process of receiving through faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action, the living Christ into our lives to the end that our life will conform to and manifest the reality of Christ’s presence in the world” (Alive in Christ, 26).

Prayer, then, or living prayer, is recognizing, cultivating awareness of, and giving expression to the indwelling Christ (ibid., p. 26).

The gracious invitation of Christ is “abide in me.” This invitation is recorded in John’s Gospel. It was reflective of John’s interpretation of Jesus, and what Jesus means for us. You find it both in John’s Gospel and in his First Letter. In the Gospel, Jesus says, “abide in me, as I abide in you” (John 15:4). Earlier, we find these beautiful words of Jesus: “and I will pray the Father, and he will send you another Counselor, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). In John’s First Letter, we read, “by this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us his Holy Spirit” (1 John 4:13).

In many of the modern translations of the Bible, you don’t find the word “abide.” The reason is the translators concluded that Americans do not use the word “abide” anymore. We use “be with” instead. But the truth is we don’t understand these texts in their richness and depth unless we use the word “abide.” Abide means more than to “be with;” it also means to “stand with,” to be “faithful to,” to “stand firm,” and “never to leave.” For that reason, other translations use the word “remain,” because that means to “stay with.”

What does it mean to abide in Christ? At least three things: to abide in Christ means realizing his presence; responding to his prodding, and resting in his peace.

We abide in Christ first by realizing his presence. To realize is to make real. So how do we make real his presence? We make real his presence through the spiritual disciplines, through Scripture and worship, and certainly through prayer.

The central focus of prayer as a discipline for spiritual formation is to wait in the presence of the Lord, especially to wait in the presence of the sacrificial Lord, in order that we might remember his love for us and in order that we might stay aware of the price he paid for our salvation.

If you are thinking, “I pray, but nothing seems to happen; I don’t feel anything; I’m not realizing Christ’s presence,” that’s the reason we have to think about making real Christ’s presence. The presence of Christ in our life is not something that happens automatically, it’s something that we realize by what we do and how we respond. And that’s also the reason we name Scripture as a way that we make real the presence of Christ. Our prayer life is going to be dry and barren if we do not live with Scripture. We live with Scripture in order to meet Christ there, in order that God might speak to us; and when God has spoken to us through his Word, we, in turn, can speak to him.

We make real Jesus’ presence by prayer and Scripture, but also by worship – our private worship in our daily quiet time, but also worship in which the people of God come together to confess their sins and to receive the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ.

We make real the abiding presence of Christ by prayer, by Scripture, and by worship. And when we realize his presence, we can abide in him.

But we also abide in Christ by responding to his prodding. He does prod. Sometimes he comes into our lives in unexpected ways to afflict us in our comfort. Sometimes he comes into our lives in unexpected ways to comfort us in our affliction. However he comes, he comes to prod. As we respond to that prodding, we abide in Christ.

Christ prods through Scripture and prayer and worship in our quiet time, but he also does it through other people. To cultivate the presence of Christ, to abide in him, we need a few people who love us, who will pray for us, and who will in some way seek to hold us accountable and responsible as Christians from day to day.

One of the best ways to do this is to covenant with these few people to meet regularly, and ask each other questions like this:

At what time during this past week did you feel closest to Jesus Christ?

At what time during this past week did you feel that Christ was calling you to a particular discipline?

At what time during this past week did you feel that your faith was being tested because of failure or some severe demand that was being made of you?

Through that kind of responsible, mutual commitment to one another, Christ will prod, and as we respond to his prodding, we abide in him.

This kind of discipline and sharing makes prayer living prayer. We allow grace to operate in our lives by allowing Christ to be alive in us. We affirm the living Christ. Freedom and joy in the Christian life depend on this. Christ is alive today. He is a now reality. This reality must become personal: Christ is alive in me.

To allow Christ to be alive in our lives is to enter into a healthy dependence upon him. Most of us are aware of what we ought to do in any given situation. Our problem is how we put that knowledge into action, and what we need is power.

So it’s not enough to abide in Christ by recognizing his indwelling presence, we must exercise his presence, that is, depend upon him, and allow him to work in us.

We abide in Christ by realizing his presence, by responding to his prodding, and by resting in his peace. That means not an escape from the world, but a resting in Christ, which enables us to engage the world. I mean the sort of thing that can come to us in the midst of the noise and din of our daily life, in the dark night of confusion and suffering, in the tension of temptation and the rigorous demands of the struggle for moral responsibility. The anonymous poet knew the secret of this resting in Christ’s peace:

There is a viewless cloistered room as high as heaven, as fair as day,

where though my feet may join the throne, my soul can enter in and pray.

One beckoning even cannot know when I have passed the threshold o’er,

for he alone who hears my prayers has heard the shutting of the door.

When we have that resting in his peace, nothing can come that we can’t overcome. When we have that, having discovered that center of our being and our certainty and our security, nothing can come that we can’t cope with and conquer. You’ve seen it as I have; to one person a set of circumstances are great mysteries, baffling burdens and heavy problems; to another these same experiences become, in the words of Samuel Rutherford, the kind of burden that sails are to a ship and wings are to a bird. To one person, life’s experiences are dark valleys and steep mountains and rough places, to another every valley becomes exalted and every mountain is brought low and the rough places are made plains, because that person is resting in Christ.

During this Lenten season, will you accept Jesus’ invitation to prayer that transforms? “Abide in me…and I will abide in you.”

For further study, see “Alive in Christ” by Rev. Maxie Dunnam (Abingdon Press, 1987).

Guidance in the Christian life is a matter of grave concern and a place where discipline is sorely needed. Christ followers have two primary sources of guidance. One is Scripture. Scripture not only promises guidance; it assumes the fact of guidance throughout its pages. For the second, Jesus promised his own guidance through the gift of the Spirit.

The discipline of guidance deserves careful attention. We must learn as much as we can and, as disciples of Christ, depend upon and practice guidance. What are a couple of issues about which you have searched for guidance in the past few months? Lord, give each one of us the grace and the will to be completely yours, to receive your guidance and to follow.

The Cross Style of Submission and Serving

Scripture not only promises guidance; it assumes the fact of guidance throughout its pages. This is one of the reasons we must be attentive to the discipline of study. We can’t be people of prayer, or Christ-led people apart from living with his Word. We can’t know the “way” of the Lord and be “happy” in him without living with his word. The Psalmist made it clear: “Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways” (Psalm ll9:1-3).

Secondly, Jesus promised his own guidance through the gift of the Spirit: “But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world”(John 17:13-14).

These, then, become our primary sources of guidance: Scripture and the Living Christ (again, spiritual disciplines are essential to cultivate awareness of the indwelling Christ).

For the Christian, the Bible is the final authority for belief and action. Of course we read other books, and we discipline ourselves in study. But the Bible stands alone as the resource to show us how to live on earth and how to get to heaven. No discipline is more crucial for Christians than immersing ourselves in Scripture. No discipline provides more power and direction for spiritual growth than Scripture.

The writer to the Hebrews refers to the message of Scripture as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Scripture as divine guidance includes judgment. It sheds the light of God’s justice and righteousness as well as the healing balm of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Along with Scripture we have the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the living Christ, present with us to guide. He did not use the word guidance, but the fact and the promise of his guidance are prominent in his speaking. In his time with the disciples in the upper room, before his trial and crucifixion, Jesus underscored the promise of his presence and of guidance.

(Read the following passages to immerse yourself in the promises of Christ to guide us: John 14:18-23; 15:7; 16:7, 22; 17:13-44.)

The big idea in these passages is that Christ indwells us Christians; the Holy Spirit is his abiding presence in our lives. To the degree that we cultivate an awareness of and are responsive to his Spirit, Christ will guide us. Paul said, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5).

The guidance of the indwelling Christ is consistent and ongoing. This does not mean that there are not specific times when we seek explicit guidance in particular situations. It does mean that through prayer and other spiritual disciplines we seek to cultivate the awareness of the indwelling Christ to the point that we are delivered from a frantic disposition of mind and heart in the face of decision. We do not come “cold turkey” to a minor or a major crisis. We have the inner sense of Christ’s presence. When we call upon that presence, direction is often so clear that the right decision does not even require deciding (Maxie Dunnam, Alive in Christ, p. 84).

Conditions to Receive Guidance

In “The Lower Levels of Prayer,” George S. Stewart says we must meet three fundamental conditions to receive divine guidance (pp. 166-67). First, we must be traveling the same road as our guide. Second, we must habitually seek guidance and watch for it. Third, we must habitually follow the guidance given.

These conditions may, in fact, become ongoing disciplines. We practice them to enhance divine guidance in our lives. Let’s focus on these conditions for receiving guidance as disciplines for spiritual growth.

The first condition, that we must be traveling the same road as our guide, needs no comment except maybe a word about the mercy and grace of God for those who don’t follow the guide. Dr. Stewart said it well in “The Lower Levels of Prayer”:

There is much Divine Guidance in lives that do not observe these conditions, restraining and saving while [people] are on the wrong road and following the wrong guide. There is light that comes to those who are not seeking and to those who are living in disobedience. This is the mercy of God which is ever seeking [people] in their wandering, and in pity saving and delivering (p. 169).

John Wesley would call this prevenient grace—God’s going before, loving, leading, constraining, restraining, in every way seeking to move in a person’s life until that person yields to grace. So we affirm that sort of guidance for all. Yet, the truth remains: for a “guided life,” we must walk in the same way as our Guide.

Second, we must habitually seek guidance and watch for it. Occasional guidance may come to those who sporadically seek, but ongoing guidance—guidance that is not episodic and crisis oriented—comes to those who habitually seek. Jesus sounded the requirement: Ask, search, knock. He also offered the reward: “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:10).

What pleases God more than a life yielded to God? God is always seeking us; that is God’s nature-seeking love. It takes open eyes and minds and hearts longing for and sensitive to God’s coming to perceive the guidance God continually offers.

Third, habitually follow the guidance given. Obedience is the added essential ingredient here.

Unfortunately we think of obedience as an issue only in huge events and at the crucial intersections of our lives. Not so. Obedience in the mundane and daily affairs of life, even the “little” things, makes obedience possible at the “big” times. Responding to the promptings of kindness and love that the Spirit initiates; doing the word as we discover that word in Scripture, even if it means as simple an act as taking a meal to a sick person in our neighborhood; exercising the indwelling Christ, visiting widows and orphans, clothing the naked, sending a sacrificial offering to feed starving children—these are examples of daily obedience to God.

The more we exercise obedience the clearer will be our perceptions, and guidance will become more and more real in our lives. When we are in fellowship with Christ through Scripture and disciplined prayer, we will experience the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Quenching that Spirit is sin. Such resistance of the Spirit dulls our sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit and stops our ears to the Spirit’s voice. In fellowship with Christ, we will know his striving within us.

Clarifying the leadings of the Spirit, acting upon them habitually, is a discipline for spiritual growth that most of us rather desperately need.

I invite you to spend time in quietness thinking about whether you desire more divine guidance in your life; if not, why are you not currently experiencing the guidance you need and want, and what are you going to do to discipline yourself in receiving guidance?

What most of us need is not desire for guidance but the will to discipline ourselves and to be obedient.

I invite you to pray for that will. Lord, give each one of us the grace and the will to be completely yours, to receive your guidance and to follow.

My book, Holy Communion: Celebrating God with Us (Abingdon Press, December 2014), explores the Eucharist as a powerful means of grace for Christian formation and church renewal. You can read more about it and even order a copy at the following website: www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781426796333. The excerpt from below (in italics, along with some additional thoughts and commentary) is from Chapter 1, “A Prayer of Thanksgiving: Seeking the Presence of God,” and it invites readers to see the Lord’s Supper for what it truly is, namely, a prayer thanking the God of our salvation.

The first time I walked into the church’s prayer chapel, my heart sank. The dank, dimly lit room had become essentially a catchall. The walls were lined with boxes and dusty bookshelves overstuffed with old certificates, pictures, and other mementos (the congregation was gearing up for its 150th anniversary celebration). There were baskets of prayer request slips from services held years before. I don’t even want to know how old the tissue box was! This space, once consecrated to God, was no longer used on a regular basis for the originally intended purpose. Instead it had become overrun with stuff, a lot of it junk.

There I was, the new pastor of a church that had a strong, proud heritage but more recently had experienced several decades of slow decline while nobly carrying on, a congregation like so many others these days. I was trying to envision through hope-filled eyes the potential for renewal and growth in that setting, but as I stepped into the prayer chapel that day almost all I could see was a bunch of clutter in a space that was supposed to be devoted to prayer.

One way to gauge the vitality of a church is to look at the place of prayer in that church’s life. The same is true on a personal level; the role of prayer in one’s life probably gives a good indication of the depth, breadth, and power of that person’s faith. God calls us to be a people of prayer, a people attentive to God’s presence.

So easily, though, the stuff of our lives can spread and take over, as it did in that prayer chapel. We will likely find such a place in most churches, as well as most human hearts and lives—spaces or areas that were at one point dedicated to God and God’s presence, but have since begun serving other purposes or no purpose at all. Without sufficient formation and care, without the light and order that we need, without remaining open to the fresh air of God’s grace stirring among and within us, parts of our lives can become cluttered and musty, stifling rather than encouraging spiritual vitality.

Thankfully, God gives us the sacraments, sacred gifts endowed with divine power to clean up our lives. By these outward signs of an inward grace, and God’s good will toward us, the Holy Spirit works invisibly in us, and quickens, strengthens, and confirms our faith in Christ. God authorizes and graciously imparts the sacraments to us for our sanctification.

Think a little more about the problem with the prayer chapel mentioned above and its spiritual implications. (By the way, in the book I go on to talk about how the people of the church have since reclaimed that space, and the newly renovated prayer chapel is a symbol of the new life that God wants to bring us through prayer and Holy Communion.) Are there any aspects of your life that are like that prayer chapel—areas that were once consecrated to God but have since become neglected? How can you reclaim those areas for God’s purposes?

Later in Chapter 1, I lead readers on a journey through the liturgy (or order of worship) presented in the hymnal that I use for leading worship, “The United Methodist Hymnal,” beginning with the words of invitation to commune with Christ and with others in his name: “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with God and one another. Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.” The order of worship continues with such elements as the peace and offering, the Great Thanksgiving (which recalls Christ’s Last Supper with the disciples and the words of institution), a prayer invoking the power of the Holy Spirit, and the giving of the bread and cup. Saying these words takes time, but they are important; as a whole, they constitute a prayer of thanks to God. In Communion services at your church, what does the pastor say leading up to the distribution of the elements? Have you ever stopped to think about the meaning of those words? What do those words say about God, the world, and the purposes of God? What do they suggest about how we can encounter and live for God?

Every year here in America we set aside a day for giving and receiving gifts—and what do we do on that day? We eat a lot. Then we eat some more! We relish all the delicious food and time with family. But for Christians, our most important meal is The Great Thanksgiving, Holy Communion, a true feast for our souls. How does considering Communion as first and foremost a prayer of thanksgiving affect your understanding of what this holy meal is all about and why it matters?

This post includes material quoted from “Holy Communion: Celebrating God with Us” (www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781426796333).

Nothing is more vital in spiritual discernment than to know that God communicates, and to know how God communicates.

Father John Powell, S.J., shared his insight that God communicates with us through five “ports of entry,” those means being the mind, emotion, imagination, memory, and will. I have explored his concept with dozens of groups in The Adventure of Living Prayer, a retreat model sponsored by The Upper Room and developed by Maxie Dunnam and myself.

I wrote the five “ports of entry” on a chalkboard and asked participants to tell their group-of-three about an experience with God, and name the port of entry which God used to communicate. I was always impressed with how quickly they could identify their experience.

After their discussion I called for votes “by precincts” around the room when each person designated his or her port of entry. I have done this with more than 50 groups, and a pattern became predictable. Typically, “emotion” was first; “mind” was usually second but sometimes third; “will” was usually third but sometimes second; and “memory” and “imagination” always competed for fourth and fifth places. I have never found an exception to this pattern, no matter how large or small the group.

Emotion was always first. When I asked the group what this tells us, the immediate and invariably apologetic conclusion was that it reveals we are emotional people (spoken as a downer!). I was saddened that many of the participants were ashamed of their human emotional nature. They assumed that to be emotional is to be weak, and the “worst case” of emotion they could imagine was religious emotion. They also assumed that emotion in religion connotes sadness, guilt, or remorse. They seldom talked of emotion in religion as joy and celebration.

Here are four additional beliefs that surfaced:

1) Emotion is caused by religious excess.

2) If you open yourself to emotions, you may not know how to handle the situation.

3) An emotional response indicates that one has lost control.

4) The person and/or their group might be embarrassed by “an emotional outburst.”

The church must address these negative attitudes about emotion in religion. Head-religion and heart-religion cannot flourish without each other. Separately, they only reproduce themselves while together they enhance Christian maturity.

Imagination

My next question to the group was, “why does imagination get so few votes?” I began to answer my rhetorical question by telling my own story, and I could see nods of agreement all around the room.

As a child, I was told not to use my imagination. As a first or second grader, I was scolded for daydreaming instead of doing my work. Letting one’s mind wander was a no-no. I was told that if my mind wandered, I could soon be fantasizing, and that fantasy was dangerous: “you could go off the deep end if you are not careful.” They reminded me that I had work to do if I wanted to learn how to be productive. How many times was I told that an “idle mind is the devil’s workshop”? (At six and seven, I had no idea what they were talking about.)

My high school curriculum was no help. It offered only a smattering of poetry and no art. Throughout my high school years, great literature was never held up as a source of “food” for one’s imagination.

Later, the “Protestant work-ethic” kicked in, and there was no turning back.

Imagine my shock when at 40, I visited Disney Land (back then). I walked through the park with childlike intrigue. Everything was fascinating and colorful and creative. Everywhere I looked I saw sheer fantasy. It was wonderful! I loved it! Everyone loved it!

That day I made a discovery: all those people were wrong. Fantasy is good. It is creative imagination at work.

And creative imagination is a gift from God!

Memory

When we considered memory as a port of entry through which God communicates, many were puzzled. We thought of memory as our ability to recall dates, facts, telephone numbers, and names. But substantive memories, the good memories that nourish and sustain us, give us a sense of our history with and without God.

Professor Henri Nouwen described healing, guiding, and sustaining memories. My classmates were most keenly interested in healing memories because many of us had memories of negative experiences that had never been healed.

Professor Nouwen also wrote about “celebrating our hurts.” That was a new thought for most of the group. “What is there to celebrate? I am trying to forget a hurt and move on.”

But celebrating one’s hurts seemed to be a valid point. We celebrate a hurt by giving it prominence in our memory. Our memory has no power over us. Only when the hurt is remembered and offered to God can the hurt be healed.

God communicates with us through our good memories. They put us in touch again with the care and providence and grace of God. God also communicates with us through our bad memories when we place them into God’s care and grace.

Will

The will is also a port of entry. It is probably the easiest of the five to understand. All of us have experienced either the presence or absence of strength of will. Father Powell referred to people in AA who find strength in their wills to do something that in themselves they had not been able to do.

During a week when I paid attention to persons around me, I witnessed dramatic effects of God’s communication through the will:

-A blind woman in her mid-twenties received her college diploma.

-Someone sitting behind me commented as a man walked forward to get his college diploma, “that man with the wooden leg is my 57-year-old daddy.”

-“I don’t want to put the tests off. Whatever is wrong, we need to know, so it can be treated.”

-“I love my car and I hate like anything to give it up, but I know it is only right that I do.”

In each case, strength of will made the difference. We know that God has communicated with us when we do that which is beyond our natural strength.

Mind

The mind is one of the strongest gifts we have going for us in spiritual discernment. To be able to think and reason is to use logic, assemble and assimilate data, make choices, and act out of “what comes to mind.” None of these is a contradiction or violation of spiritual discernment. On the contrary, we could not properly discern without our mental faculties.

God’s ways, for the most part, are not shrouded in mystery. They are usually reasonable, logical, simple and obvious. When I read the commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” I can grasp it with my mind.

Our world is full of innumerable examples that are far less dramatic. When I want to know God’s will on such matters, I simply use my mind. When my mind is influenced by the Holy Spirit, it is a reliable discerner of God’s will. I don’t need a theology book or a prayer group to help me discern whether God want me to abuse drugs.

Usually at some point during a discussion of the ports of entry someone will question whether the list of five is complete. “How about Scripture or the witness of a Christian friend? Doesn’t God speak to us in those ways?”

I distinguish between a source and our perception. The Bible is a source of God’s witness. But the Bible may sit on the table, unopened and unread. It is the same with the Christian witness of a friend. One’s Christian witness may have been given in word and deed on numerous occasions, yet it can remain unheeded-never really heard!

Only when one makes use of the Bible, or heeds a Christian witness, do they move through a port of entry into one’s consciousness.

Because of the story of a friend, I choose to add a sixth port of entry:

Body

A professor friend described a personal experience that strongly suggests that our bodies are channels through which God communicates. He was an effective teacher. He received affirmation in his work. The university moved him into a coveted, tenured faculty position within six months, when for others it took five years. His ample salary also affirmed the quality of his work.

Everything was great, except that every morning when he went to work he became nauseated-really sick! A medical checkup did not reveal a cause. After nine months of daily nausea at work, his wife asked, “is it possible that God is trying to speak to you through your body and you are not listening? Maybe this is not what you are supposed to be doing with your life.”

In due time, he left the university and began a year’s sabbatical in residence with his family at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Retreat Center near Philadelphia. He stayed at Pendle Hill as a leader for ten years at a sizable reduction in salary compared to the university. He never again experienced daily nausea. His body was a port of entry.

In the midst of these ports of entry, to discern God’s will, two basic understandings must be fixed in one’s prayer life and personal theology: first, God is good! If you don’t hold that basic conviction, why would you want to know God’s will? Second, communication with God is possible!

 If you wish to be intentional about developing your capacity for discerning God’s will, the best way is to be open to, and utilize, all of the ports of entry that are available for God to communicate with you. We have considered the question of how God communicates with us. Let me raise a quantitative question. Let’s now ask, not how, but how much or how little God communicates with us?

We can never calculate this for sure, but we can surmize some things because of what we know about the nature of God. We know that God’s grace is given freely and abundantly. We experience weather, air, and the seasons. These simple reminders suggest that we never have to question God’s constancy.

Ironically, God does not always have to be “speaking” or “broadcasting” in order to be communicating. Nor is communication from God stopped if I am not attentive. The very possibility of our presence to each other is the beginning of communication. And God is constantly calling for the full realization of that possiblity. God’s constancy in relationship-even constancy in availability for relationship-is in itself a powerful form of communication. In a deep, deep sense, that communication goes on constantly. It is like my relationship with Rosalie. We have a deep relationship of communication in part because of our availabilityfor a deep relationship.

How much God communicates with me is a wonderful thought that opens marvelous images of totality and consistency that reflect God’s nature.

How little I communicate with God is a terrible question because it confronts me precisely at the point of a weakness. The answer to that question judges me because of my inability to receive what God is saying when I refuse to “have ears to hear.” A major factor determining how little I communicate with God is the closed or underdeveloped Ports of Entry in my consciousness.

How much God communicates with me by being constantly available to me is a matter of everlasting grace on God’s part.

Anthony Bloom, the Russian Orthodox priest who has written so helpfully on prayer and the contemplative life, used a nursery rhyme to express his understanding of solitude and the contemplative life.

There was an old owl

Who lived in an oak.

The more he saw

The less he spoke.

The less he spoke

The more he heard.

Why can’t we be like

That wise old bird?

When solitude has a religious dimension, we are not only physically apart from others; we are using aloneness purposefully. We are pondering who we are, what life is all about, where we are in our quest for meaning, and how we are related to God and others. Solitude is a discipline for spiritual growth for all who wish to pursue the Christian life seriously.

Solitude Is Essential For Discernment

Alfred North Whitehead in his book Religion in the Making says, “religion is what a [person] does with…solitariness.” More than aloneness is being spoken of here. When solitude has a religious dimension, we are not only physically apart from others; we are using aloneness purposefully.

What we do with our solitude becomes the key. So we are not talking about circumstantial solitude; we are talking about choosing and creating solitude for personal spiritual growth: being alone enough, quiet enough, long enough that our jaded senses, dulled by the onslaught of a compulsive society, will be restored to aliveness. Spiritual growth—having the image of God restored within us, growing in the likeness of Christ—requires enough solitude and silence that we might distance ourselves from all that clamors for our attention. In that distancing, we gain perspective that enables us to see clearly, to be discerning, then to act intentionally with inspired intuitions rather than to react compulsively.

Solitude Is Essential For Prayer

As a part of his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5-8), Jesus taught about prayer. There were two obvious lessons. One, we must never allow prayer to be a self-display of piety. Two, prayer is far more than words; it is being with God, putting ourselves in his presence and seeking to be attentive to him.

Yet, there is more here. Jesus instructs us to be alone and pray. Is the closed door of our private room, or the “closet” as some translations have it, a synonym for solitude? Jesus’ life was punctuated with deliberate times of chosen solitude. To inaugurate his ministry, he spent forty days in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). He spent the entire night alone in the desert hills before he chose his twelve disciples (Luke 6:12). He sought the lonely mountain, with only three disciples, as the stage for the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-2). He prepared for his highest and most holy work with a long night of prayer in the solitude of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-44).

Jesus often connected significant acts of ministry or events in his life with a time of solitude. After miraculously feeding the five thousand, he asked the disciples to leave, dismissed the crowd, and “went up the mountain by himself” (Matthew 14:23). When the twelve had returned from a preaching and healing mission, Jesus told them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). He withdrew to a deserted place and prayed, following the healing of a leper (Luke 5:12-16). When he received word of the death of John the Baptist, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself”(Matthew 14:13). And following a long night of work “in the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Solitude was a regular practice with Jesus. One of the reasons he called us to solitude was because he knew that solitude was essential for prayer. Fenelon expressed this truth in a cryptic sentence: “How few there are who are still enough to hear God speak.”

Solitude and prayer are linked. When we are alone, away from the outer and inner barrage of distractions, shut off from the noisy din and frantic pace of activity and relationship, beyond the distractions of all the pulls upon our attention and energy, then we can be quiet enough to hear the divine whisper. So we seek solitude as a setting for prayer.

Not only can we hear God in the silence of solitude, there we can also be so settled and centered that we can speak to God out of the deepest feelings and needs of our lives. Without solitude, it is likely that our praying will be reduced to concern about surface issues, immediate happenings, and present moment involvements. It is only when we carve out some daily time for solitude, if only thirty minutes, and add to that regular but less frequent times of three or four hours (usually weekly) that we stay in touch with our inner being and pray from our deepest feelings and needs.

We recognize that there is a solitude that we can maintain despite crowds and clatter. But rare is the person who can maintain inner attentiveness and heart-solitude in the midst of a busy life without being renewed by solitude.

Solitude Is Essential For Sensitivity To and Solidarity With Other Persons

One of the fruits of solitude is a sharpened sensitivity to and a solidarity with persons. In solitude and silence there comes a new freedom to be with people. We gain a capacity for a new attentiveness to the needs of others, a new responsiveness to their hearts. Thomas Merton observed,

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say (“The Sign of Jonas,”268).

We need to accept the truth of this testimony because it is very important. But, even accepting the truth of this testimony, we need to remember that simply being alone does not sharpen sensitivity and enhance solidarity. In our solitude we must open ourselves to the recreating power of quietness and stillness, the healing, sensitizing presence of Christ, so that coming out of solitude we can be with others meaningfully. In solitude we must settle ourselves inwardly, so that we will become aware of the indwelling Christ. In solitude and prayer we recognize and cultivate awareness of the indwelling Christ. It is the indwelling Christ who sharpens our sensitivity and makes us one with others.

Solitude May Be a Time of Testing

Audience members once asked philosopher Martin Buber a series of grandiose-sounding questions. Finally he burst out, “Why don’t we ask each other the questions that come to us at three o’clock in the morning as we are tossing on our beds?” Thoreau contended that we can learn more about ourselves in a sleepless night than by a trip to Europe.

Solitude, whether chosen or forced upon us, is a time of testing. Jesus, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, is our classic witness of this. Those forty days of solitude were his final preparation for his public ministry. There he wrestled with the devil in a life-death struggle. Who he was as messiah and the shape of his ministry were beaten out on the anvil of attractive, enticing temptation. Three times the devil tempted Jesus to accept the role of a popular, power-wielding messiah. That testing did not end, though Jesus was ultimately victorious. Luke’s account of this temptation experience closes with this word: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The King James Version has it that the devil “departed from him for a season.”

The inevitable presence of evil returned to test Jesus in Gethsemane. The option to evade those who would destroy him and escape death was there with overwhelming attractiveness. The depth of Jesus’ agony in testing is seen in the bloody sweat that poured from him.

So solitude brings testing. We should see this not as something to evade. Though we do not invite the testing, there is a sense in which we may welcome it. We may welcome it if we go with God into solitude. Or, in the case of involuntary solitude such as that brought by grave illness, if we have known the presence and power of the living Christ in other times and can hold on, however tentatively, to his promise that he will “come again,’ that he will be with us “even to the end of the age,” then we can welcome the testing that is coming to us in solitude.

Matthew closes his story of Jesus’ wilderness temptation with the comforting assurance, “and suddenly angels came and waited on him’” (Matthew 4:11).

Have you had an experience of testing in solitude? If so, what was that experience like? What did you learn? Practice the discipline of solitude by having a time of quietness each day, and a weekly 30-minute time of solitude in which you “examine your conscience.” Remember to listen to the Lord.

Intuition is a direct knowledge or awareness of something without conscious attention or reasoning; it is non-intellectual perception. Nothing innately spiritual is either stated or implied in that definition. When a person allows the Holy Spirit to take control of his or her natural intuition, the result is spiritual intuition. Discernment through spiritual intuition provides deeper understanding and expands the boundaries of awareness.

God communicates; and a human being with a sensitive spiritual intuition may process what God communicated. This suggests a strategy God uses much of the time: God teams up with human beings and relies upon us to respond to divine promptings.

That communication is the pivotal point of everything described in this article. In this event the intuitive response of team work, and God’s providential care, were at their highest levels.

When defining spiritual intuition it is a marvel think that God can put an idea into someone’s mind, and that person can comprehend that idea, and immediately act with unquestioning determination; it is a remarkable wonder! God has freely given each of us this capacity. We get little nudges—feelings that this or that should be done or not done. We get hunches and leadings, signs and signals, and sometimes direct messages. Many persons have related experiences of God’s direct communication.

The next time you experience spiritual intuition, put away worry about what others will think. Instead, carefully consider your leading. Test it with spiritual friends. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.

The Gift of Spiritual Intuition: A Case Study

Rosalie and I were privileged to spend some vacation days on the Island of Kauai. On the first afternoon, we had an experience of a remarkable kind of spiritual discernment-spiritual intuition.

We decided to go shopping in one of the colorful hotel shops. I was eager to get an elegant Hawaiian shirt. I had passed over several shirts and was on my way to making a final choice when Rosalie said, “let’s go to the beach.” I said, “help me select my shirt and I’ll wear it to the beach!”

Intuition at Work in Real Time

“No!” she insisted, “we can look for a shirt later.” She took two shirts out of my hands, laid them aside, and with a strong grip on my wrist led me out of the store against my protest. She said, “Come on. I want to go to the beach!” I was shocked, because she is not a “beach person.”

Surprisingly, the beach was almost deserted, which was unusual for 6:00 on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. We saw only a woman and a man on the beach. The man ran down the beach, leaving the woman alone. We were perhaps 50 yards from her. She seemed to be shouting to us, but we couldn’t hear her because of the wind. Finally, we heard her scream, “my husband is drowning in the surf!” (She had told the stranger and he had gone to find help, but he ran in the wrong direction.)

God’s Helpers

I sprinted toward the hotel for help. Rosalie ran into four lanes of slow-moving traffic and stopped a car. The two motorists dashed across the beach and charged into the roaring surf.

By the time I returned from the hotel with help, they had pulled the man to shore. Rosalie, a registered nurse, was bent over the man’s inert form, applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Because of exhaustion the two men were prostrate on the beach. The man had already turned blue then chalky-white around his mouth and in his hands and feet. We were losing!

Another Helper

A crowd quickly gathered. A doctor rushed up and quickly went into action. “We have about 15 seconds!” he declared as he applied oxygen that had been brought from the hotel. He began to pump his chest and yell, “Breathe man! You’ve got to breathe!” He hit him on his chest a couple of more times. “Breathe man! Breathe.” Miraculously, he struggled for breath. Then another breath! And another! By the time the ambulance arrived he was breathing and some color had returned to his face, hands and feet.

Talk about God’s providential care!

Consider this list of provisions:

-Rosalie and I were the only persons on the beach, except the man’s wife and a passer-by she had sent for help.

-Rosalie is a registered nurse and trained in CPR.

-The two men she flagged (the only car that stopped) were native to that island, were young, expert swimmers, and were trained as EMTs.

-If I had not run to the hotel, we would not have had the oxygen.

-The doctor who ran out to help was a cardiologist.

Coming down to the wire with fifteen seconds to go… if I had looked at one more shirt we would have been too late! The uncanny sequence of events laid end-to-end like dominoes was miraculous! What began as a leisurely shopping expedition turned into an unforgettable afternoon.

As I recall this experience, I realize that at the time I was not particularly surprised by Rosalie’s out-of-the-blue insistence that we go to the beach. Often, I have wondered whether she was standing in light I couldn’t see or was just being stubborn. But spiritual intuition is not the same as stubbornness. Earlier, we said intuition is a direct knowledge or awareness of something without conscious attention or reasoning; it is non-intellectual perception.

The Big Question

After this episode occurred, I tried to sort out “what happened” on the beach that day. My mind keeps going back to the abundance of God’s providential care.

But there is something more profound than the unusual events on the beach. I am intrigued by the question: where was God that day? Is it fair to say that God was not on the beach-only a couple of EMT’s, a nurse, a doctor, and a few other helpers?

Perhaps God’s will was mediated in two parts:

(1) God communicated in the shirt shop . . .

(2) . . . causing a human being to respond.

Would that make God’s communication in the shirt shop the sum total of God’s intervention? Could it be that God was actually involved only in the shirt shop where God communicated?

It is clear that a human being with a sensitive spiritual intuition processed what God communicated. That does not diminish God’s part. Rather, it suggests a strategy God uses much of the time: God teams up with people and relies upon us to respond to divine promptings with redemptive acts. Communication was the pivotal point of everything that followed and the intuitive responses from several people were exceptional teamwork.

Those ministries of care on the beach were essential. But they seem less dramatic than God’s act of communication, and Rosalie’s response to that communication in the shirt shop. That seems perhaps the most phenomenal event of that day.

To think that God could put an idea into someone’s mind, and that person could comprehend that idea, and immediately act upon it with determination – what a remarkable wonder! A second wonder is that God has given all of us this capacity. God communicates with all of us: we get little nudges-feeling that this or that should be done, or not done; we get hunches and leadings, signs and signals, and sometimes direct messages.

Ask the Holy Spirit to give you nudges, hunches, leadings, signs and signals, and direct messages. Any of these is more precious than a precious stone.This prayer to the Holy Spirit is so important, it must be prayed over and over and over.

After “all was well” on the beach we went to the man’s hotel room to tell his relatives what had happened.

Then, we went to our room-in awe of everything!