The world needs more listening ears!

Henri J. M. Nouwen 1932 - 1996: "From All things New"

 

This is such a blessing to me, Henri Nouwen is one of my favourite Christian authors. This is not just because of the quality of his writings, but the life choices he made to follow God's leading. He was prepared to share his doubts and his struggles.  A world class Professor from Yale School of Divinity who left the academic world to pastor a community of disabled people in Canada.

His simple statement about prayer is LISTEN!!

 
 


He starts by using the story of Elijah in the cave and the still small voice of God (1 Kings 19:9-13)We must become attentive to the still small voice and be willing to respond when we hear it. He makes some interesting linguistic statements that I find intriguing The first one is that the word absurd comes from the Latin word for deaf. Curiously the word obedient is derived  from the Latin root word for listening. This shows me the simple basis for us needing to listen more in prayer.


We are so busy talking when we pray that we forget to listen. When we don't listen, we don't hear what we need for need for guidance. When we ask a question of God, it would seem to be logical to be quiet, so we can hear the answer. The old adage of "we have two ears and one mouth therefore I should listen twice as much as I speak", would seem to be very applicable to prayer. This leads us into the need for two commodities that can be in short supply in our present culture: Silence and Solitude.



This can be  an uncomfortable place, a space, where all sorts of thoughts cascade in on us, from all parts of daily life. Some suggesting why we shouldn't bother with silence and solitude. A friend  of mine  many years ago suggested having a pad next to us when we pray, writing down anything that is a worthwhile reminder and then move back to the silence. Henri suggests starting small, 5-10 minutes a day. You will be able to enjoy the silence better, the more you practice. One thing that stuck me about this practice (which I have started on many occasions, not always successfully) is that  it switches the control from me to God. When I stop talking in prayer, I give the leadership back to God. What does he want to do with this time of prayer? What does he want to say to me? In our very noisy world it can take quite a bit practice to feel comfortable in solitude and silence.

There would seem to me to be a place for all the prayer tools; my every 20 minute prayer for 1 minute is going quite well. I am feeling quite satisfied by the process. I am praying with much more intensity in my 1 minute bursts as I stretch my damaged shoulder. It is raising my awareness of the need to prayer in all situations that I find myself in.

The need to listen to become more obedient is a new slant. I have only ever tried silent listening prayer because it was supposed to be the right thing to do............... If  however I listen to be more obedient that becomes a vastly different drive to persevere through the uncomfortable stage that I have struggled with in the past. This maybe the key that I have lacked. Maybe as my other blog says I will learn to hear the voice of Truth more clearly and therefore trust more.

I simply need to shut the door of the study and switch off the music and begin to listen. Sounds easy doesn't it! I will see how it goes.

Until next time.

Paul

p.s. God just dropped this thought,  just before  publishing:
" It is not the doing that separates Mary and Martha it is the desire and ability to listen."
 I need to think about that a little bit more!