There are seven essential entryways in us through which God may stealthily make God’s presence and will known during prayer. The better you understand these, the more readily your apparent prayer monologue can be grasped as an actual prayer dialogue, as a “with” rather than “to” God. It is vital to patiently wait upon, and listen for the Lord around these entryways. And also to take on faith that God addresses you daily, in a variety of elusive ways, though most importantly in prayer.

           My purpose in these prayer podcasts is to teach you how to pray to God, so that you can actually come to sense the presence of God, the subtle but significant response of God to your prayer. What I will offer you are time tested ways of praying that will at some point bring you into direct connection with God. Everything is at stake in the long overdue return to the focus on knowing God directly. Such knowledge permeated the Bible and the medieval mystics. I want you to encounter the ultimate beauty, goodness and truth: God. 

The focus of Abiding Prayer is on Christ and entering into a heart-to-heart mutual life with Christ during the prayer itself. Abiding Prayer offers a pathway toward attaining what Christ fervently prays for all disciples: “that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one” (John 17:22-23).

           1. Self-discovery: What do you seek? How strongly do you seek it? How long have you sought it? You can learn a great deal about yourself by examining your history of prayers to God. Though God knows your thoughts and needs before you do (Psalm 139:4; Matthew 6:8), you still have to voice them. It is essential to your well-being to let your desires, your hopes as well as your fears, become word.

           2. Self-transformation: “Thy will be done,” said Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane before His arrest and crucifixion (Matthew 26:42).

3. God-appeal: We cannot help but ask, even beg God for what we seek from God.

4. God-encounter: This is the most important “why” of prayer. Prayer is the essential means to open us to the gift of God’s presence.

           “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's” (verses 1-5).

           The amazing truth is, giving thanks with your mouth generates thankfulness in your heart. Expressing gratitude blesses you with the feeling of gratitude. Bless the Lord and you will discover how much you really have to bless the Lord for. If you seem not be able to bless God for what you have, then bless God for what you do not have, that you do not want!

           The wondrous touch of God will bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says includes: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). These all come together in varying degrees, depending on your readiness to accept, embrace, and live out of these fruits.

           God prefers to touch you softly, tenderly, like a mother her child or lovers their beloved. God apparently desires that you become sensitive to God’s gentle touch, without fear; and that you trust God’s touch completely, trust that God will never hurt or reject you. God knows as no one else where and when and how you need to be touched, even if you did not realize it until God’s actual touch. Then you heart may exclaim “Thank You! That is just what I needed.” 

Just imagine the calming consequences which would come to us if we could only say, with comforted conviction, the following three verses. They are penetrating words of fear-damping faith; they attest to the courage faith bestows, as we risk leaning fully into trust:

           “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? . . . I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Psalm 27:1, 13-14).

           Prayer will slowly reveal to us our unique, private yet shared space with God, already in place from the moment of our birth. It is as if God planned out our entire future, our coming time to be alone with God, at the very instant of our creation. How God can wrap our farthest tomorrow right into our initial beginning of todays, is an unfathomable mystery. But then, so is God, and likely will remain so forever.

Individual prayer will ever remain a private mystical mystery. Such prayer has been called. “The flight of the alone to the Alone.” It is as deeply personal as anything our lives. Thus does Jesus instruct: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).

This renders prayer all the richer with meaning. The truth is, Prayer and worship are going on in heaven and on earth at one and the same time, concurrently. That means we are not alone. The souls of dearly departed family members and friends are spiritually with us, as we are with them. That means our communion with God somehow includes our communion with them. We may sense, but cannot prove this great commonality between the living and the dead, but it is there nevertheless. Our common prayer and worship transcend time and space. We are sharing in a unity to be ours forever in heaven.

           “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

           I have mostly considered these words as referring to Christ coming to meet us after we pass over to the other side. But I recently suggested to a spiritual woman that she meditate on these words in effort to sense Christ’s presence right now. As I said this, the Spirit informed me that these words also mean, “Christ is coming for you now, so that you and Christ can become one in Spirit in this life; and after that, in the life to come.”

           At the heart of Jesus’ mission was his passion to set us free from every manner of bondage, physical, psychic, or spiritual. In his very first message to humanity, delivered to his own people in Nazareth, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2):

           “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). 

           “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9).

           To pray Paul’s words, focus on these four questions: What does this passage say? What does it say to you? What do you want to say to God? What does God want to say to you?

           “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9).

           What does this passage say? What does it say to you? What do you want to say to God?

And what does God want to say to you?

            Prayer moves in a continuous circle, from God to you; then from you to God. You will never know for sure who actually began a specific period of prayer. What you feel in your heart that impelled you to pray may have been proceeded by the secret prompting of God.

           Yet prayer, like language itself, truly begins in God, streams from the word, which flows eternally between the beloved and the lover, right along with the love itself. Prayers, like love songs, are generated in the unseen, gravity-like field of Spirit between you and the beloved, God. Thus, melodies and prayers represent mutual life, the holy “rubbing” of your soul over against God’s Spirit. Prayer like music does not merely flow through us: it also arouses us, plays with us, interacts with us such that the prayer event itself can change us, as well as the prayer content. The Psalms are replete with examples of the psalmist starting at one place in the opening verses of the psalm, and ending in an entirely different, typically better place by the end.

           Other modes of prayer seek above all the presence of God. That means, they desire dialogue, direct connection with God, like Elijah seeking God on Mt. Carmel (1 Kgs 19:9-18). The intensity of desire here is for God, which no one other than God can satisfy. Such desire is one of God’s greatest gifts, which will ultimately lead to union with God.

           Once that faith is in place, strengthened by the surrounding grace of God, you will be ready to face unshaken, whatever may come in your service to God and love. Paul puts forward what to expect, in one of the most important promise passages in the Bible:

           “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:1-5). 

           When Jesus sent seventy disciples into the countryside to prepare the people for his coming, he said, “Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house” (Luke 10:5-7). 

           This is certainly the case regarding your relationship with God, including your prayer-life. As you have developed an attitude toward God over time, so also have you developed expectations regarding what might happen during and as a consequence of prayer. 

           “For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa 30:15). 

           It is never too late to return to God. I have witnessed persons returning to God after years of seeming alienation, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was due to suffering, and not believing that God was there, that God could or would save them from their painful state of helplessness and aloneness. Yet this single verse offers an extraordinary promise from the God of Israel, which God alone can fulfill.

           Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Perhaps the best analogy for being born from above or again is that of falling in love. Falling in love is a life-changing experience, built on the addition of the “other” and what that relationship brings to your life. All that you are falls in love with all that your partner is. Like the John Legend song says, “All of me, loves all of you.” The difference between reading a romance novel and actually meeting and falling in love is analogous to the difference between being “once born” and “born from above.” Yet how can you fall in love with someone you have never met? And how can the once born understand the twice born?

           “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love . . . So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:7-8, 17-19).

           Some of the best laughter I have been fortunate to share, has been with families at hospitals while awaiting the results of surgery, or worse, an expected approaching end of life for a loved one. It is not of course as if the circumstances were anything less than grave, or that they were laughing at its seriousness. Rather, the humor, just like prayer, gave them temporary relief, a brief lifting of burdens, a short forgetfulness, helping to re-balance their listing souls. 

It is as if belief opens up an inner treasure-trove of understanding impossible to attain without prior faith. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV). And the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), wrote about the necessity of taking a “leap of faith,” with understanding coming after the faith-risk of leaping. 

           Perhaps the best analogy of agape love is that of pouring water from a large pitcher into an empty glass. If you do not stop pouring, the water will eventually overflow the glass. That is the point at which love becomes agape love: when you have received more love than you can take it, when your heart is overflowing. Like the best of all possible news, you will simply have to give it to and share it with others. 

           “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me . . . As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem” (Isa 49:13-16; 66:13). 

           “Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’' or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you’” (Luke 17:20-21).

           It is significant that the Greek preposition Jesus used to indicate the place of God’s kingdom, (entos), means both “within” and also “among” or “between.” Both. Not one without the other. God’s kingdom, which includes heaven itself, is not only “there” and “then”; but it is also “here” and somehow, “now.” 

           “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:4-7). 

           The subsequent benefits or fruit of prayer are essentially those which arise from the presence of the invited Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, available in and through prayer: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Paul adds immediately, “There is no law against such things” (Gal 5:22-23). And like growing fruit in a garden, it takes time, good soil, sun, warmth, and rain. And different fruit have different patterns and periods of growth. And note: significant growth can happen during prayer

           “I cannot dance, O Lord, unless you lead me. If it is your will, I can leap with joy. But you must show me how to dance and sing by dancing and singing yourself! With you I will leap towards love, and from love I will leap to truth, and from truth I will leap to joy, and then I shall leap beyond all human senses. There I will remain and dance for evermore.” 

           One of the most remarkable verses in the entire Bible is Revelation 3:20. It presents a great summary of what Christ seeks to do, and for us to do in response, all in Christ’s own voice. The resurrected Christ tells the church at Laodicea, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rev 3:20). These are words to take to heart and even memorize. I silently recite them nearly every day. It helps keep me opened to, centered and focused on, Christ. 

 Such human joy is relatively short-lived. Like a wave hitting a beach, it tends to pull back at about the same speed it first reached the shore of your soul. Even if you want your joy to stay longer, it does not usually agree. Like adapting to a pleasant smell, you get accustomed to it too quickly. 

The joy of the Lord, however, is a different kind of joy. As one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, this joy arrives immediately when you sense God in you and yourself in God. 

           Contemplative prayer is a heart to heart communion, which begins when you seek God for God. You will likely not be aware of the depth of your desire for God at first. It’s like drinking water when you do not know how thirsty you are until you swallow that first drink. Then you discover the full extent of your deeper thirst, right along with the joy of the water. The Psalmist poignantly realizes this in Psalm 63:1: “O God . . . I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

           Built on that realization, my calling from God, in addition to loving the God who loves me, and my neighbor as myself, is to love myself. And to do so for God’s sake even above my own. To love yourself as God’s creation includes opening your gifts and talents, and believing in and developing the gift you are to God, to others, and to yourself.

           As rabbi Hillel, an older contemporary of Jesus, famously said, “If I am not for me, who is? And if not now, when? But if I am only for myself, what am I?”

From Hal's new book, Pray This Way to Connect with God.

           It is as if belief opens up an inner treasure-trove of understanding impossible to attain without prior faith. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV). And the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), wrote about the necessity of taking a “leap of faith,” with understanding coming after the faith-risk of leaping. The amazing truth is that faith is self-authenticating; sufficient proof reveals itself only after the risk of believing.

From the book, "Pray This Way to Connect with God."

           “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21-23).

           Can you imagine what it must have been like to have Christ’s own breath, the very breath of God, the Holy Spirit, gently blown into your face, lungs and heart? Life-changing for sure. Once, a breeze of the breath of God bathed my face in a dream. The dream sequence began as other dreams, but turned into something holy and wholly unspeakable.

           The second example has to do with the difference between a monologue and a dialogue. To again refer to Jesus’ instruction on prayer:

           But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matt 6:6-8).

           In other words, when you pray, enter into a private dialogue where God may reward you in secret. Note that when you are speaking with another person, the atmosphere is different than when you are alone. And prayer is not meant to be a monologue but a dialogue. When you pray, do so with the faith-generated atmosphere that God is truly listening, and will respond to you in God’s timing and God’s way. In other words, a prayer state is a form of mutual atmosphere, just like having an honest and heartfelt dialogue with a loved one, someone who knows you right well, so that you can speak “shorthand” rather than “longhand.”

           We can thirst for God as well as for water. This thirst may be subtler and more difficult to define than the parched mouth of water deprivation. Yet once it is in operation, nothing and no one else but God can satisfy that thirst. Psalm 63 says this most poignantly.

           It turns out that there is an underground river of prayer, arising spontaneously like a spring from the unreachable depths of our heart, which flows inevitably into what has been called the “Temple Invisible.” It is in this mystical and unsearchable realm where prayer becomes a dialogue rather than monologue, something not just from you, but also from God. Your prayer may begin as you seeking God, but once you enter the Temple, you will discover that it is in startling fact, God who is seeking you. And God will always find you, when you are ready, and desirous of being found by God.

Patrick’s personal prayer, which was reportedly discovered hidden in His breastplate after his death, could be called the “Christ be my everything” prayer, for its terse petitions contain the essence of the Christian life: a life of mission with, in and through Jesus Christ. Its power rests in its pure “Christ-consciousness.” It simply asks: “Christ be one with me!”

                       “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today” (Matt 6:25-34).

           Faith and unbelief are not mutually exclusive. That is, we can have a degree of faith, mixed with some doubt at another degree. For example: You may believe that God can heal a loved one for whom you are praying, while at the same time doubt that God will in this instance.

           Prayer unfolds in relational time. Like a conversation with a beloved friend, prayer time may seem brief yet clock time could indicate that hours went by. The opposite can seem just as true: prayer time may seem long, while the concurrent clock time was surprisingly brief. Speaking for myself, I have brief prayer moments throughout the day, turning intensely to the ultimate Love of my eternal life. Such brief “God-fullness moments” are of a peace-bearing depth. And they render clock time irrelevant.

1. What does the text say?

2. What does it say to me?

3. What do I want to say to God?

4, What does God want to say to me?

           To meditate means to ruminate about, ponder, reflect on the possible significance of a prayer to you. First you read the meditation in its entirety. Then you follow where your heart and eyes take you. Whatever it is, from a single word to an entire stanza, what is it saying to you? This puts you into a dialogue with the passage, asking questions and listening to what the text might be saying to you, and perhaps what God might be saying to you through the text.

           There is surely no grander a statement of faith in God than Psalm 91. It is a psalm to carry in your heart, especially when seeking God’s protection from evil of all manner, including “deadly pestilence.” As you read and pray the first ten verses, imagine how you would feel if you truly believed in and acted on these words. Imagine the peace, assurance and strength these promises of God could generate in your heart:

           “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust." For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

           “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

       What exactly is anxiety? Two of the clearest definitions of anxiety: 1. A vague foreboding that something terrible is about to happen. But you do not know what, or when it will take place. 2. Living in the gap between the now and the then.

           So, are you living in such a gap? One wonderful little psalm seeks to resolve any and all fear.

           The question is: how best to approach God? The answer is as simple as it is profound. When you approach God, do so as if you are approaching love itself. For in hidden fact, that is precisely what you are doing. And listen for God as you would listen for the voice of love.

              One meditation that works for me I call “Resting Prayer,” where I ask nothing of God, and God asks nothing of me. We simply rest together, silently letting love flow freely between us.    

           It is most significant that the word for “compassion” in Hebrew literally means “womb love.” Rare is the mother who would reject the child of her womb. And the fact that we children issue from Her, is the basis for Mother God’s compassion and unconditional, unending love.

The question remains, how can you be reasonably sure that such a word is from God? It will have the following elements: It is clear, distinct, and just what you need to hear. You do not forget it; nor does its impact diminish over time. It gives you peace and brings you greater wholeness; it contains mercy and grace. It strengthens and ignites your heart, drawing you closer to God. It does not contradict but is supported by scripture and tradition. You are always grateful to have heard it, if for no other reason than it attests God’s ongoing presence with and working in you.

           Not only are we to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. We are also to trust God with all our hearts, even if that includes trusting God in the face of inscrutable misfortune and suffering. Much of our daily lives may be shrouded in the mystery of “why.” But this much is certain: you must trust and love God with everything you have and are. And God will either protect you from, or perfect you through whatever you have to undergo.

           “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11).

We begin with St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). Of all the disciples who came after Jesus, none understood, lived and made peace with others better than Francis.

The Process:

1. Reading: Slowly read a brief passage. Truly listen and become fully present to the text. What does the text say? Read the text a few times, letting the words sink in. 

           2. Meditation: Reflect, ruminate on the text. What words especially grab you? What does the text say to you, mean to you right now?

           3. Prayer: React, pray. What do you want to say to God? This stage includes your waiting for God’s sensed presence, and hopefully, response.

           4. Contemplation: This begins when you sense God drawing near, however subtle. It might be a calming assurance of God’s presence, or a peace-bringing resting in God’s Spirit

           Most significantly, the word for “breath” in the original Greek of the New Testament is “pneuma,” which is also the word for “air” as well as “spirit.” This mode of prayer focuses on your breathing, specifically on your breathing in and breathing out. Attending to your breath makes it easier to remain focused. This prayer is as simple as breathing in and out, something you do constantly.