a drop of water

The spiritual discipline of acknowledging God, seeing God, listening to God, and obeying God is a habit that can be strengthened by rhythmically associating those disciplines with the tasks of everyday life.  Setting time apart just to read your bible or pray to God is great too (I’m not elevating one over the other), except that it lends itself to compartmentalizing spirituality.  I end up feeling close to God for that brief period of my day and then feeling God’s absence throughout the rest of my daily tasks that aren’t as tangibly spiritual.

I remember how Rob Bell in one of his Nooma shorts, explained about how a word for God in Hebrew represented the sound that one makes when breathing.  That is so awesome when we think about each breath, the essence of our life, acknowledging God.

James encouraged us to consciously find God in those unconscious habits we do everyday.  Like when we take a shower, let that time be about consciously listening to what God has for you today.  I remember Benson mentioning that the shower was his prayer closet.  Every time we eat, we say grace which is a worn out example of consciously finding God in those unconscious everyday habits.  I like to pray when I’m in the car driving to and from work, running down the list of people in my head.  Another example would be every time you open your laptop lid or turn on your computer, you acknowledge God’s presence.  Maybe every time you turn on the TV to watch your weekly show, you can acknowledge God’s presence.  An idea from a long time ago, was to use your cell phone as a prayer list.  Scroll down your contact list praying for each person and when you don’t know how to pray for one of those people, give them a call and find out.

We interact with people everyday about work, about goals, about complaints, about frustrations, about family, etc.  A lot of this interaction becomes mundane at a certain level because it happens all the time.  What if we instead consciously sought after God in each of our interactions with people (no matter what the subject was) in order to end the conversation having learned how to more specifically pray for that person.  I think this mind shift is hard, but rewards are limitless.  Everything else would be secondary, like giving a good impression, appearing wise, proving your point and them wrong, solving their problems, etc, would fade into the background.

James explained that the goal here is to make it a natural reaction or habit.  Like if we consciously listen to or think about God everytime we take a drink of something, it will eventually become a habit.  Once it becomes a habit, we can move on and find another rhythm.  I’m excited about this pratical praying without ceasing.