God, Help Me (eBook)

How to Grow in Prayer

Jim Beckman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
176 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-313-4 (ISBN)

'If you want to know who you are and why you're here, start praying every day.'-From Chapter One You're in your teens, your twenties, your thirties and you're wondering-does prayer have anything at all to do with your life? You don't pray, at least not regularly, and you don't really know how. On the other hand, if God is who he says he is, and if he communicates with us through prayer, as Scripture and the saints and plenty of ordinary people say he does, then clearly you're missing out on something huge. Jim Beckman will not only introduce you to the wisdom and teaching of the Church regarding prayer, he will also provide tools that will help you achieve real intimacy with God. Nothing can replace that relationship with God, and nothing can get you there except the mysterious, unfolding experience of daily prayer.

"e;If you want to know who you are and why you're here, start praying every day."e;-From Chapter One You're in your teens, your twenties, your thirties and you're wondering-does prayer have anything at all to do with your life? You don't pray, at least not regularly, and you don't really know how. On the other hand, if God is who he says he is, and if he communicates with us through prayer, as Scripture and the saints and plenty of ordinary people say he does, then clearly you're missing out on something huge. Jim Beckman will not only introduce you to the wisdom and teaching of the Church regarding prayer, he will also provide tools that will help you achieve real intimacy with God. Nothing can replace that relationship with God, and nothing can get you there except the mysterious, unfolding experience of daily prayer.

CHAPTER ONE

why prayer is important

I was sitting across from my spiritual director, on probably my third or fourth visit with him. Several months earlier I had had a “first meet” to discuss whether or not I would be a good fit as his directee. I remembered saying to him that I was looking for a spiritual director who could help me really “go there,” someone who could help me navigate spiritual depths. That’s what a good spiritual director does: help you grow in a life of prayer. Yet here I was now, months later, heading in for another session and not experiencing much depth.

We prayed, and then my director asked his typical, “So what’s up?”

I responded, “Well, it’s been really busy lately…”

He abruptly interrupted me. “Stop! The next thing you’re going to say is something like, ‘and I really haven’t been praying as regularly as I should.’”

There was an awkward silence. He had taken the words right out of my mouth. He let the silence hang there for a bit and then said, “That’s what you’ve said for the past four months, every time we’ve gotten together.”

Another awkward silence. I really didn’t know what to say.

My spiritual director finally asked, “So what’s it going to take, Jim?”

I looked at him quizzically, not sure what he meant.

“What’s it going to take to convince you?”

Again, a questioning look. I was genuinely confused.

“What’s it going to take to convince you that there’s nothing more important that you can do every day than spend time in prayer?”

Wow, there I sat. Not even five minutes into the session, and I was knocked out! I had thoughts running through my head like a firestorm. Every time I would think of something to say, I would realize how stupid it was—just a lame excuse. And my spiritual director didn’t rescue me. In fact, several times during my mental gymnastics, I looked up at him only to get a questioning look, which for some reason really annoyed me. He had nailed me, and I knew it.

This torture seemed to go on forever. The more I wrestled with his question, the more I realized that there just wasn’t an adequate answer. Then it hit me: I really wasn’t convinced that prayer was important. I mean, if I was convinced, prayer would happen, right? I would find time, no matter how busy I was. I would make time.

Something huge happened to me that day. I admitted to myself that I didn’t really believe that I needed God. I thought that I could serve him and live for him without spending intimate time with him. It sounds terrible when you say it out loud, but that was the way I was living. I let the words ring in my own mind: I actually believed that I didn’t need to pray! I wept.

I don’t know how long I cried. I was completely unaware of my spiritual director. With my admission came a flood of other realizations: How could I be a spiritual leader for others if I wasn’t praying? How could God do the healing works in me I knew he wanted to do if I didn’t spend time with him? And why wasn’t I convinced that prayer was important? How could I be in love with someone I hardly spent any time with? My lack of prayer seemed like clear evidence that I wasn’t really in love with God.

I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do. Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me.

—Mother Teresa1

RETURNING TO MY FIRST LOVE

It hadn’t always been like that. Back in college there were times when I would pray for hours at a time. I enjoyed being with God, reading the Bible and singing worship songs. There was a newness back then to this relationship, sort of a honeymoon time.

But as time went on, prayer became more functional. It was something I knew I needed to do. I wonder whether the motivation was that I thought people expected me to pray or that I really wanted to spend time with God.

Don’t get me wrong: I had many experiences of the power of prayer; I even had many deep encounters with the Lord. But my prayer wasn’t consistent. I would encounter God in worship at conferences, on retreats and sometimes even in my personal prayer. But there was something missing.

That day with my spiritual director was the beginning of a shift in my life. It marked a return to a love that over time I had allowed to grow distant, even cold. I decided that nothing was more important than prayer. There have been days since when lunchtime has been my prayer time. I have cancelled “important” meetings so I could take time to pray.

It’s not always easy to find that time, especially on days when I’m running from the moment I wake up until the moment I lay my head down at night. (That’s what working several jobs, being married and having five children can do with your time.) But even on those days I have this deep conviction that I can’t make it without stopping to breathe with God.

I previously approached prayer as a kind of drug. I used it to help me feel close to God, to give me experiences of his presence. But as with a drug, I could choose when to take it, and I could sometimes go without it.

Prayer now has become more like air. It’s not really an option: I can’t breathe without it; I can’t live without it.

Prayer is a relationship with the Lord of all. I’ve become convinced that there’s nothing more important I can do in my day than take some time to be with my Lord. I need him, and I know that now in a way I didn’t before.

Those who do not pray habitually, no matter how faith-filled or pious, will not achieve full spiritual maturity. They will not acquire peace of soul because they will always experience excessive disquietude and view things according to their human or worldly significance. Thus, they will always suffer from vanity, selfishness, self-centeredness, ambition, meanness of heart, judgment, and an unhealthy willfulness and attachment to their opinions. Those who do not pray may acquire human wisdom and prudence, but not true spiritual freedom or a deep and radical purification of heart. They will not be able to grasp the depths of divine mercy or know how to make it known to others. Their judgments will always end up shortsighted, mistaken, and contemptible. They will never be able to walk God’s ways, which are far different from what many—even those who have committed themselves to a life in the spirit—imagine them to be.

—Jacques Philippe2

IDENTITY AND MISSION

As I have grown in my experience of prayer, I have come to experience the fact that prayer is meant to draw us into intimacy with God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Experiences of this Trinitarian intimacy have a way of helping me understand who I am. And by its very nature, that is what prayer does: It informs and inspires my core identity.

In Gaudium et Spes, one of the Vatican II documents, there’s a great line that John Paul II liked to quote: “Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes, 22). In other words, Jesus became man to reveal God to man and to reveal man to himself. Spending time with Jesus can only help me come to a greater understanding of myself. My very identity is informed and inspired whenever I spend time with him.

And guess what, when I come to a deeper understanding of who I am, that has a tendency to give me a greater sense of why I’m here. What’s my purpose in life? Why did God put me here? It all gets greater clarity through the movements of prayer, for it is Jesus who “makes his supreme calling clear.”

“Why am I here? What’s my life all about anyway?” I hear questions like these all the time. There are whole sections in bookstores devoted to the topic.

It’s so simple really. Who better to help you understand why you’re here than the one who made you? It is his deepest desire to be in a loving relationship with you and, through that relationship, to inform and inspire who you are and what you do in this life that he has given you.

Prayer is the access point to this kind of clarity. If you want to know who you are and why you’re here, start praying every day.

In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	19.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-313-7 / 1635823137
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-313-4 / 9781635823134

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