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The Prayer of the Heart

A woman balances on a swing in front of a waterfall, illustrating how the prayer of the heart brings life into balance.

A Series on the Human Heart as the Temple of God, Part 3 of 3

There is only one secret to the spiritual life that you need to know: the human heart was made for God. It sounds impossibly simple, but understand that it is more profound an insight than most people know. Life is busy and complex. It is difficult sometimes to know what decisions to make. For instance, there is nothing simple about discerning how to allocate money and resources wisely. We also struggle with how to get through pain and grief. And yet… for all its complexity, there is a simplicity at the heart of life that can easily get lost.

You Are Your Ability to Love

Who are you? In one sense, you can spend a lifetime learning the answer. But in a deeper sense, you are simply your ability to love. You are your heart. And you were made to love God above all things. I will go out on a limb and say that if you have this right, then most of the rest of your life will fall into place.

This is the foundation of everything else. It is why Jesus says that ultimately all the laws of God boil down to two: love God and love your neighbour. Make sure that loving God is first and the neighbour is second. Why? It is not because there is a competition between God and everything else, nor is it because God needs to know that God is first. Rather, it means that making the love of God your highest aim sets everything else in place.

One reason life can be so difficult is that our loves fall easily out of balance. This is the real meaning of idolatry. Created things like money, desire, power, possessions, and relationships are all good. They only become problematic when they are loved and desired out of balance. Giving them God’s place in our lives and attention distorts everything else.

Keeping on Track with the Prayer of the Heart

How do you keep God first and everything else in balance? One way is through prayer, particularly the Prayer of the Heart. If you explore this prayer practice, you will probably find a simple and powerful way called the Jesus Prayer. This is a humble plea for God’s love and mercy through one repeated phrase: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me. Christians have used this prayer for centuries to help keep their lives centred on God.

The human heart was made for God. The heart is the dwelling place of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We can distill the Prayer of the Heart even more than these seven words, and say that it is only about bringing our hearts before Jesus. To really experience this truth, we must strip down our prayers and come before God just as we are, in all our poverty. By that I mean without big thoughts about God, with no desire to impress or get something, no excuses about our behaviour or choices, no big plans for how life should be, no thinking about how important or rich you are. Just you – plain and simple, stripped down. Find the simplest words you can to express love, and then stay there.

The Prayer of the Heart is Reaching with Love

The Prayer of the Heart seems so simple that most people pass it by, yet it carries the deepest wisdom. Carlo Carretto tells us,

“Don’t try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach him in love; that is possible.”

God really only wants you to know one thing: that you are loved and that you are called to love others. When you pray, keep the logic of it simple, and you will find that wisdom will meet you in the practice.

As I end this series, I invite you to meditate on these words by Carlo Carretto that sum up the Christian vision of the Prayer of the Heart:

“The love of God is by nature pure, balanced and holy. Whoever is dominated by it lives in deep peace, has an ordered view of things, and knows the meaning of true freedom. But the love of God, too, passing into our heart must be worked at, cultivated, pruned, fertilized. And the most uncompromising farmer is God.”

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The Hope Canteen Podcast: Conversation on Worship and Music with Dr. Joy Berg

The Hope Canteen - Interview Podcast

To listen to the interview, CLICK HERE. While you’re there, subscribe to the Hope Canteen Podcast on your favourite listening platform.

We are excited to share with you our conversation with Dr. Joy Berg. Dr. Berg is well known in the Edmonton area as a musician, scholar, educator, and choir director. We enjoyed talking with her about worship and music. During the conversation, she drew on her considerable experience to invite us to go deeper in our understanding of these central parts of congregational life. We hope you enjoy listening to her insights.

This is part of a Hope Canteen series called Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing. In this series, we are talking with people about many facets of worship, and how it enriches our life together. Along with people whose ministry involves leading the church in music and worship, we hope that you will join us in these conversations as we look ahead to worship beyond the pandemic.

Dr. Joy Berg received the Companion of the Worship Arts for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in 2014. She holds a Doctorate of Music degree in Choral Conducting as well as a Doctorate of Worship Arts. As a longtime church musician, she focuses her research in hymnody, liturgy, Canadian hymn-writers, and worship planning. She is actively involved in local and national church events. You can visit her website here: sanctuarysounds.ca

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The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 41: Jesus and the Money Changers

Jesus and the Moneychangers
Episode 41: Jesus and the Money Changers

Many people hold an image of Jesus as a wise teacher who is kindly and serene. This week’s passage, the story of Jesus and the money changers in John 2:13-22, seems to work against that. In this story, Jesus goes into the temple of God. There, he finds that rather being a place of prayer, it has become a place where people are buying and selling.

He goes into the temple grounds and starts overturning tables filled with coins, shouting at people and driving the animals out. He says, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” This is serious stuff. Join us around the virtual table as we discuss worship, justice, and keeping the main thing the main thing, through the lens of this challenging incident.

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The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 27: All Saints’ Day

All Saints' Day
Episode 27: All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day is one of the great feast days in our church year. Originally a commemoration of martyrs, All Saints‘ draws together several important themes: worship, heaven, redemption, communion, and more. It gives us a window into reality beyond what mortal eyes can see, and reminds us of God’s promise of hope and a future. Join us around the virtual table as we talk about Revelation 7:9-17 and All Saints’ Day.

Please join the conversation! Who is your favourite saint? How do you find hope in God?Add your insights in the comments below.

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How to Pray: Bless the Lord

How to Pray: Bless the Lord

Adoration and praise are some of the central acts of being a Christian. In the last reflection, I used the writings of C.S. Lewis to show us that we praise God not because God is egotistic, but rather as an act that draws us out of ourselves and connects us to the source of all that is true, good and beautiful. Today, we’re continuing that conversation with what it means to bless the Lord.

To praise God truly is to be awake to what is. The world around us is shot through with miracle. There is a reason that children can spend a long time just looking at ants! In the right light, everything is interesting and beautiful. G.K. Chesterton points out that the problem is not that the world is dull, but rather that our eyes have stopped seeing:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

God is even bigger than the creation in which we wonder. The Scriptures invite us to go beyond creation and contemplate the fact that there is a ‘being’ who radiant, sovereign, omniscient, the source of everything that is true, good and beautiful.

Beyond the Creation to the Creator

Then, move even beyond that to consider that this God knows you. God has loved you since before time existed. God knows all your joys and delights and all of your struggles. If we are willing to listen, God guides us and gives us grace. These are amazing truths! What do we do with them? How do we express them? The Bible gives an odd answer that at first doesn’t make sense. It tells us to bless the Lord. Here are a few examples:

And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Deuteronomy 8:10

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Psalm 100:4

I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

Psalm 145:1-2

Does Blessing God Even Make Sense?

This seems odd because of course God is the primal blesser. God is the giver of all good things. When God gives blessing to us, we are somehow strengthened or helped. But we can neither strengthen nor help God in any way. God is perfect. So how can we bless God? Scripture answers that we bless God whenever show our gratitude, whenever we praise him, whenever we give glory.

Blessing God is simple. We give thanks and name before God everything we love and find amazing about creation, life and God. We might talk about how wonderful the mountains are, or thank God for the gift of loved one. Recognizing who God is is part of it as well: thank God for his attributes: his love, sovereign power, grace, goodness. We say them out loud, not because God doesn’t know these things, but because the act of saying them connects us to God in a simple and primal way.

Sharing God’s Life

Each act of praise is one of the ways in which God shares his life and self with us. So why is this a blessing for God? Because it is giving him the one thing he can’t do without our cooperation: we are giving him our heart. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, ultimately God does not want anything from us, he just wants us: our love.

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How to Pray: Adoration and Praise

How to Pray: Adoration and Praise

In the last reflection, we looked at the central action of lifting our heart to God. As I mentioned earlier, finding a time and place is the first step to prayer. After that, we place ourselves before God by lifting up our hearts. The question that often follows is what is the content of our prayer? What is it that we are ‘supposed’ to say?

As we explore the content of prayer, I will be following Pete Greig’s nine paths of prayer: Stillness, Adoration, Petition, Intercession, Perseverance, Contemplation, Listening, Confession, and Spiritual Warfare. (Always note that different teachers have slightly different lists.) Today I want to start with Adoration and Praise.

Adoration and Praise Is Natural

In some ways, Adoration is the simplest and most natural of prayers. If you have ever been in the mountains, and the sheer beauty and vastness of the landscape hits you, and you exclaim “Wow! This is amazing!” then you know adoration.

As Christians, we believe that everything good and beautiful in creation and in the lives of women and men ultimately comes from God. God is the absolute source of all that is true, good and beautiful. This is important because the true, the good and beautiful are qualities of the world that move and inspire our souls. They provoke emotional responses that are meaningful in our lives.

If good and beautiful things move us because of their power, just imagine how incredible must be the being from whom they come. God is the ultimate artist. Therefore, we praise God. The Westminster Catechism calls this the purpose of our lives: “What is the chief end [purpose] for humans? It is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” To glorify God means to praise him for who he is: to be in love with God. God commands our adoration and praise, and this is the reason for our creation.

Does this Mean that God Is Egotistical?

Here, we quickly need to clear up a confusion. C.S. Lewis asked these same questions, and he found this a hard teaching because it made God seem very egotistical. He wrote, “We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand… Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and of His worshippers threatened to appear in my mind.” I think this is a common question for people when we talk about the need to praise and adore God. Is God petty and insecure?

Praise Completes Enjoyment

As he pondered this question, Lewis had two insights. The first had to do with the nature of praising itself. He had been thinking of adoration and praise as complimenting God. But then he noticed that “every enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise.”

The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.

C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

He realized that the praise actually completes the enjoyment of an activity. It is like when you read a great book and you need to find someone to tell. To praise God is to complete the enjoyment of the things that God has made. More than that, in praising we come to enjoy God as the source.

God Communicates Presence in Adoration and Praise

This was Lewis’ second insight. When we say true things about God such as how great and awesome God is, we find that we actually experience God through our praise. Lewis writes, “It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to (us.)” The adoration and praise is not so that God can receive something from us, but that the worship is intimately bound up with God giving himself to us.

In other words, in praising God, we find that we are simultaneously uniting with God. We become part of something that is far greater than we are, and our souls are expanded in the praise. This is the great paradox of worship: it is all for God, and yet we find that we simultaneously grow richer in emotion and deeper in faith.

So how do we Adore God? In the next reflection, we will look at what it means to “Bless the Lord.”

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Contemplative Prayer (Lectio Divina Series – “Contemplatio”)

Contemplative Prayer

Contemplation is the highest expression of [our] intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith.

Thomas Merton

We now reach the last movement of Lectio Divina: Contemplation. This is the natural culmination of everything else you have done. Be aware that it can be the most beautiful part of your time of prayer, but it can also easily be the hardest. Contemplative prayer is also the hardest to explain because of its utter simplicity. Here are the instructions: just sit there. Don’t think about anything or do anything. Don’t expect anything. Just sit there. Actually, there is one other instruction: be attentive to where you are and to the God in whose presence you sit.

Moving Beyond Words

Contemplative prayer is a form of silent prayer. This is sometimes confusing because it often seems that prayer is all about words. We use words in the liturgy, words in praying for others, words in reading the Bible, words while singing, and words when just talking to God.

Word-filled prayer is very important; language is a great gift. But we need to understand that words are not the final goal. They point to something beyond themselves. For instance, when I tell my kids to come and eat dinner, the word “dinner” is not what is important. They don’t stop and say, “What a great word, Dad!” They rush by me to get to the actual plate of food sitting on the table full of food. The food is the dinner, not the word.

Contemplation is similar. It is the recognition every word we use in prayer is pointing beyond itself. Words point us beyond ourselves to the great mystery that words can’t capture. In the end, they are only signposts on the way, leading to what is really important: God. In my story of my children and dinner, the real point is not hearing the word, but that they enjoy the delicious food we have prepared. At some point, in a similar way, we leave the words of prayer behind, and just enjoy the presence of the God who made us for just this profound relationship.

Contemplative Prayer is Savouring and Attentiveness

I recognize that this can still be confusing. Let me suggest two other human scenarios that might help us to glimpse what contemplation is. First, imagine that you are eating the best meal you have ever had. It is in that little restaurant that people have told you about. You didn’t believe that food could be that good, but you went anyways. Then you put the first bite in your mouth… and oh…my… goodness!! The flavours are so rich and succulent. Your table mate asks how it is. You pause because you just want to savour that taste for a moment before answering. That savouring is a form of contemplation. You don’t think about it; you just experience it.

Second, imagine walking on the beach with a friend. It is the perfect day: warm but not hot, the faint scent of salt, the water pleasantly wet on your feet. You talk for awhile as you walk, but over time you just drift into silence. It is just pleasant to be there with your friend, all your senses taking in everything. There is nothing you need to say. It is enough just to be there.

This quiet attentiveness to what is around you is also a form of contemplation. Walter Burghardt calls it “a long, loving look at the real.” While this is easier to do when things are pleasant, to be attentive is a way of deepening spiritually in all circumstances. You can start simply with a few minutes at the end of Lectio Divina.

Beginning to Practice Contemplative Prayer

Contemplation is just sitting there. Don’t think. Just be…in the presence of God. I recognize that this is deceptively simple, so there are techniques to help quiet the thoughts and words that constantly drift through our minds.

Let me give you a little trick that most people use, even established contemplatives. When you have finished praying about your reading, choose one of the words in the reading that spoke to you. Maybe the word was faith or love or God or joy or follow. It could be anything.

As you find your mind wandering, say that word in your mind. Let the word be the tool you use to re-focus on the presence of God with you. When you wander again, say the word again. Say it as much as you need. I find that sometimes I need the words a lot. That is fine. The point is not to accomplish anything, but to be in God’s presence with no agenda. Just sit in the truth that God loves you so much.

Next time, as an example, I will reflect on a session of Lectio Divina I did with Psalm 131.