Prayer from the Heart

I’ve used this little devotional Augustine Day By Day over the past 22 years… some years following it “day by day” while most years I just pull it out whenever the Spirit moves me. This was one of those days. 

You see, I’ve been sensing a deeper call to prayer. I mean, I’ve always prayed… pretty much the way I talk (and even write most of the time)… in a conversational style. I’ve never been a big one to pray long fancy, polished, prayers… In fact, I felt the call to pastoral ministry at an altar rail when I was 17… but the “joy” (most people spell that as “f-e-a-r”) of praying in front of people paralyzed me inside. I eventually did step into the pulpit at age 34… and was still scared of that public praying aspect of the job. I mean, I talk to God all the time… but I talk to Him like I talk to a friend… and sometimes it’s absolute silence… because I’m simply listening.

Anyway, in the May 6 entry of this devotional, the editor shares a quote from Augustine from a commentary Augustine wrote about Psalm 118. The closing verse (118:29) of the Psalm is exactly the same as the opening verse (118:1). They both read: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.” (NAS=New American Standard version)

As Augustine reflected on that verse (those verses?) and all that had been sandwiched in between that opening and closing verse, he drawn to consider the way we Christians try to pray. And, he was overwhelmed by the awareness that the out loud voice in prayer can be used to connect with God in true prayer but it sometimes can just as easily simply try to fool the humans nearby into thinking the one uttering the words is connecting in prayer with God when there is NO real communication going on at all.
Check out Augustine’s thoughts from the devotional…

“If the cry to the Lord uttered by those who pray is made with the sound of the bodily voice without the heart being turned to God, who can doubt that it is made in vain? But if it comes from the heart, even if the bodily voice is silent, it can be concealed from everyone else but not from God.”
“Therefore, when we pray–whether aloud as required or silently–to God, our cry must come from the heart.”

Augustine recognizes that the REAL prayer, is the prayer from the heart… and sometimes that’s also expressed out loud and others can listen in as one is praying from their heart and it happens to come out in their voice as well. But sometimes, the real, true prayer, the ‘heart prayer’ comes from such a deep place in the heart that it rises straight to God’s heart without anyone else even hearing a peep.

It reminds me of a story I once heard about a meal at which President Lyndon Johnson was in attendance. The president asked a friend to ‘share grace’ or ‘say the prayer.’ The man proceeded to pray and, after a few seconds, Johnson spoke out and said something to the effect of “Speak up, we can’t hear you!” And the praying friend calmly responded, “I wasn’t speaking to you, Mr. President,” and calmly returned to his praying.

I’m not arguing against vocalized prayer, but as that presidential friend reminded Johnson, and Augustine reminds the rest of us, we listeners who happen to be near enough to someone to hear them pray out loud or to hear them in prayer when there is just silence… we need to recognize that we cannot always hear the true prayer… but God can! And none of us ever fool him!

-Augustine in Commentary on Psalm 118 (29), 1 in Rotelle, John E., ed. 
Augustine Day By Day (Catholic Book Pub.Co., New York) 1986,
(entry for May 6 on p. 71).

Fear of the Lord

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…”           — Proverbs 1:7

I heard a radio preacher talk about the fear of the Lord yesterday. i expected him to go to start talking about the fearful, terrified, condemnation-style fear and how God was, well, almost like a bully that we’d be afraid of running into. But he didn’t! Instead, he talked about the kind of fear that I would call reverence.

And then this morning, I opened up a devotional called Augustine Day By Day and today’s entry, “Chaste Fear,” was bringing out this same approach.

Just from the fact that you try to avoid evil, you improve yourself, and you begin to desire what is good. When you begin to desire what is good, there will be a chaste fear in you.

That fear by which you fear being cast into hell with the devil is not yet chaste, since it does not come from the love of God but from fear of punishment. But when you fear God in the sense that you do not wish to lose Him, you embrace Him, and you desire to enjoy Him.

YES!

When I was growing up, so many of the gospel presentations were not GOOD News, but rather FEARFUL WARNINGS!

• ‘You better make the right decision or you’ll go to Hell!’
• ‘If you accept Jesus, you’ll be saved from Hell!’
• ‘Turn or Burn!’
• ‘Make sure you’ve got you’ve signed up for your eternal  fire insurance!’

I have one fellow pastor and friend who is always dwelling on the negatives. And yes, I know that seems like a generalization, but in this case it’s pretty accurate! He tries to draw people’s attention to how horrible, bad, awful, and sinful the world is around us. And that’s his attempt to share the “good” news! I love him and he has the sweetest wife, but I can only be around him for short periods of time and generally avoid reading anything he writes. It’s all pessimism and fear based. I don’t need more of that in my life!

It seems to me that that radio preacher (I don’t even know who he was) and St. Augustine have the healthier, more Godly approach. Yes there is a gratitude for what Jesus saves us from eternally in regards to punishment, that’s NOT the motivation for my walk with Christ or my understanding of God. Instead, there is a JOY in getting to know God better as I walk with Christ… as I learn to be His disciple and become more like Him. My relationship becomes more and more about love and respect and gratitude and reverence… not fear of punishment.

After all, the definition of “gospel” is supposed to be “GOOD news.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

entry for July 29 “Chaste Fear” in Augustine Day By Day, compiled and edited by John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Catholic Book Publishing:New York, 1986, page 113. Quote drawn from Augustine’s sermon on 1 John 9, 5.

Augustine: Without Humility

In 1998 I picked up a little daily devotional book called: Augustine Day By Day, compiled and edited by John E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Catholic Book Publishing Co., N.Y.: 1986). I’ve used it as an everyday companion a couple different years, but I just happened to run across it again a couple of weeks ago and started reading some of the entries on which I had made notes. One of the first ones that caught me was titled “Without Humility Pride Will Win.”

This Augustine quote was the entry for January 8th and was drawn from Letter 118,22:

“Grasp the truth of God by using the way He Himself provides, since He sees the weakness of our footsteps. That way consists first, of humility, second, of humility, and third, of humility.

“Unless humility precede, accompany, and follow up all the good we accomplish, unless we keep our eyes fixed on it, pride will snatch everything right out of our hands.”

This has been a good reminder during this last week for me. On Saturday, my wife and I met with the Pastor-parish committee of the new church I’ll be moving to in June (First United Methodist Church, Carmichaels, PA). The District Superintendent was there to introduce us and at one point he’s reading off a list of qualities, about me, that had made the bishop and his cabinet believe I might just be the right next pastor for this church. I can’t list what they were, I wasn’t taking notes. But I remember thinking as he finished, “Man, I’d like to meet THAT guy!”

Did he exaggerate? No. But I always see my flaws, my overweight body, and my list of things I want to do better. Augustine’s warning to do self-examination with “first, … humility, second, … humility, and third, … humility” is good counsel!

Now if we could just infuse our presidential candidates with a little bit of humility… !