![]() It was filled with feelings of admiration, worship, and adoration. I called this “devotional prayer” as opposed to just praying with words. So I asked myself, “What would I feel if the historical Jesus were really here with me now in his risen spiritual presence? I pictured that and my heart was immediately filled with gratitude, awe, thanksgiving, and love. However, sometimes I could not “get going” in sensing Jesus’ presence in a heart-felt way, but rather felt lethargic. I found this practice was helpful in my regular meditation/prayer time. Now they were heart senses, although manifested in a totally different non-head way, a heart focused feeling way. When I began to feel slightly natural doing this, I realized I was beginning to move from my five senses down to my heart. Yes, I know it was a strange picture, but I willing to do any crazy thing if it helped. The other practice was to imagine my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth being literally attached to my heart and not my head. Then I would tap on the way down my face and neck until I reached my heart in my chest space where I would continue tapping until my attention was fully there. Sometimes I would tap my head with my hand a few times until my attention was there. I placed my attention in my head and then let it slowly sink down by neck to my heart. I began with two exercises that helped me take the longest journey of my life -the one from my head to my heart. I wanted to begin a new practice- to intentionally and literally move down from my head to my heart in my still-time with God each day. If I could do that, why could I not shift my attention from my head to my heart? I tried, but it was challenging for me as a head person. However, if I worked at it I could actually put my attention to the physical sensation of touch to my feet, or hands, or back. The only physical sense left was touch and my head was filled with nerve endings from my eyes to my skin. I smelled and tasted the world from my nose on my head and my mouth in my head. I heard the world from the ears on the sides of my head. I saw the world from the eyes in front of my head. I could see how putting my attention in my head could be mistaken for sensing. I wanted to move from mental “saying” to heart “sensing.” I interpreted the “drinking” not as drinking his “words” but as becoming intimately and inwardly sensing of his living presence - literally drinking in, not just what he said, but sensing him, his living presence. I saw myself sitting with Jesus and “drinking” in him. And hidden things will be revealed to them. I wondered if I could do completely wordless praying? I remembered Jesus saying, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me and I will become like them. Most of my problem then with the traditional path of prayer was with words. ![]() ![]() Some years ago, I began to want a more non-traditional way of praying. But when he spent the night praying, did he really keep praying by saying words to God the entire time? How did Jesus pray? Was he limited to words? We do have records of the words he prayed at other times. However, it is never recorded that he personally prayed what we now call “The Lord’s Prayer, and doubtful that he did. Like other teachers at his time, he taught them a prayer that was based on his teaching. Or we read the words of our prayer from the Book of Common Prayer or a devotional book.Įven Jesus began teaching his friends about prayer at the beginners’ level of simple, meaningful words. Most of us learned to pray by hearing the words other people say when they pray – our parents, friends, Sunday School teachers, pastor, priest. Prayer, understandably, becomes associated with words early in our life in the traditional Christian path. Maybe you even gave up on words and decided on a more meditative approach to prayer. All of this seemed like it to came down to coming up with the right words. ![]() Have you ever gotten tired of trying to think when you prayed? You thought about how you wanted to pray, what to pray for, and how to say it all. ![]()
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