- Prayer: Part of our conscious life that is deliberately oriented towards , and exclusively responds to the spiritual reality, that is God. The lifting up of the desire of the heart for God, by withdrawing it from earthly thoughts.
- There are 3 capacities we have to consider: The thinking faculty, the feeling faculty and the willing or acting faculty. These pretty well cover all the ways that "self" can react to other things or "selves".
- Prayer should takes us towards the spiritual order of all the powers of our mental, emotional and volitional life.
- Prayer will include all sorts of "Spiritual work" meditation, adoration, petition, confession and contemplation. Including various shades of these activities in-between.
It is here I want to press pause for this week, to dwell a while on those thoughts of work and rest. How does this fit with where we have been. The silence, the thanks giving or the soaking in the first love of the Father. These seem to tie up with the work of the George Buttrick earlier with the thanksgiving , confession, intercession and petition as part of the prayer/work process.
Then there comes spiritual rest. What might that look like:
- Is it found in Silence?
- Is it found in soaking in the Fathers love through silence or listening to music or worship.
- Is it just being in God's presence in a place you love: a garden, a long and lonely beach on peaceful day or in a storm or maybe where your prayer closet is.?
- A place with a lot of people that you can just be at rest and "at one" with the Father.
- All of these things.
- Where does concept of Sabbath fit in here?
We will continue with Evelyn next week as we to look at mysticism. I would be interested to see what works for you. Leave some comments on Facebook or on the Blog site.
May you enjoy spiritual rest this week.
Until next week Paul
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