Peace is not to be Placed in Men

He who attributes any good to himself hinders God’s grace from coming into his heart, for the grace of the Holy Spirit seeks always the humble heart.

―Thomas à Kempis

Lenten Reflection: Peace is not to be Placed in Men
The Park Forum

“Man draws nearer to God in proportion as he withdraws farther from all earthly comfort,” writes Thomas à Kempis. Yet the full calling of the Scriptures, and à Kempis’ work, isn’t to disregard comforts, but to reorient them in light of the gospel.

We’ve looked this week at à Kempis’ calling, in The Imitation Of Christ, to confess both our idolatrous love for the world and our inability to weather even the smallest daily frustrations. Today the argument goes further: repent of the ways we avoid the risks of faith by grasping for control and power in relationships.

Relationships, in other words, provide deep earthly comfort. We are called to give ourselves to others—yet we cannot demand from them what ought only be supplied from God. Here, written as a letter from Christ to his children, à Kempis challenges:

My child, if you place your peace in any creature because of your own feeling or for the sake of his company, you will be unsettled and entangled. But if you have recourse to the ever-living and abiding Truth, you will not grieve if a friend should die or forsake you. Your love for your friend should be grounded in Me, and for My sake you should love whoever seems to be good and is very dear to you in this life. Without Me friendship has no strength and cannot endure. Love which I do not bind is neither true nor pure.

You ought, therefore, to be so dead to such human affections as to wish as far as lies within you to be without the fellowship of men. Man draws nearer to God in proportion as he withdraws farther from all earthly comfort. And he ascends higher to God as he descends lower into himself and grows more vile in his own eyes.

If you knew how to annihilate yourself completely and empty yourself of all created love, then I should overflow in you with great grace. When you look to creatures, the sight of the Creator is taken from you. Learn, therefore, to conquer yourself in all things for the sake of your Maker. Then will you be able to attain to divine knowledge. But anything, no matter how small, that is loved and regarded inordinately keeps you back from the highest good and corrupts the soul.

Prayer: The Small Verse

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone. — Isaiah 9:1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Exodus 40 (Listen – 4:07)
John 19 (Listen – 6:23)

Daily Frustrations

For with God nothing that is suffered for His sake, no matter how small, can pass without reward.

― Thomas à Kempis

Lenten Reflection: Daily Frustrations
The Park Forum

We do not typically associate daily frustration with suffering. In his masterful work The Imitation Of Christ Thomas à Kempis not only draws the two together, but highlights the profound truth our inability to handle life’s minor frustrations reveals.

“The man who will suffer only as much as seems good to him, who will accept suffering only from those from whom he is pleased to accept it, is not truly patient,” à Kempis writes. Our idolatry of control runs so deep we become impatient—frustrated—when we cannot control our suffering. He continues:

For the truly patient man does not consider from whom the suffering comes, whether from a superior, an equal, or an inferior, whether from a good and holy person or from a perverse and unworthy one; but no matter how great an adversity befalls him, no matter how often it comes or from whom it comes, he accepts it gratefully from the hand of God, and counts it a great gain.

The way frustrations drove à Kempis to God (not the individual frustrations themselves) became something for which the great theologian was thankful. He prayed; “For though this present life seems burdensome, yet by Your grace it becomes meritorious.” In a challenge, à Kempis writes of his readers’ daily frustrations:

And if they do not seem so small to you, examine if perhaps your impatience is not the cause of their apparent greatness; and whether they are great or small, try to bear them all patiently. The better you dispose yourself to suffer, the more wisely you act and the greater is the reward promised you. Thus you will suffer more easily if your mind and habits are diligently trained to it.

The inability to engage our faith in life’s daily frustrations can be defeating; based on the words of his prayer, à Kempis must have experienced the same thing. Yet, instead of falling into despair, he again clings to God:

O Lord, let that which seems naturally impossible to me become possible through Your grace. You know that I can suffer very little, and that I am quickly discouraged when any small adversity arises. Let the torment of tribulation suffered for Your name be pleasant and desirable to me, since to suffer and be troubled for Your sake is very beneficial for my soul.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure;* wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51:8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Exodus 39 (Listen – 5:24)
John 18 (Listen – 5:16)

Broken Love

For when one trouble or temptation leaves, another comes. Indeed, even while the first conflict is still raging, many others begin unexpectedly.

― Thomas à Kempis

Lenten Reflection: Broken Love
The Park Forum

“Often it is a small thing that makes me downcast and sad,” laments Thomas à Kempis. The 15th century theologian was part of a community that, although they took no vows, lived a life of intentional obedience, chastity, and poverty.

It is easy to dismiss those who willingly sacrifice the comforts of their time as far stronger than the average person of faith—but à Kempis’ writings reveal the depth of his daily struggle. In The Imitation Of Christ, he confesses:

I propose to act bravely, but when even a small temptation comes I find myself in great straits. Sometimes it is the merest trifle which gives rise to grievous temptations. When I think myself somewhat safe and when I am not expecting it, I frequently find myself almost overcome by a slight wind.

Look, therefore, Lord, at my lowliness and frailty which You know so well. Have mercy on me and snatch me out of the mire that I may not be caught in it and may not remain forever utterly despondent.

Focusing his argument onto the realities that all Christians face, à Kempis confesses that it is not his commitments that trip him up, but his idolatrous love affair with a broken and sinful world.

Alas! What sort of life is this, from which troubles and miseries are never absent, where all things are full of snares and enemies?… How is it possible to love a life that has such great bitterness, that is subject to so many calamities and miseries? Indeed, how can it even be called life when it begets so many deaths and plagues? And yet, it is loved, and many seek their delight in it.

Many persons often blame the world for being false and vain, yet do not readily give it up because the desires of the flesh have such great power. Some things draw them to love the world, others make them despise it. The lust of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life lead to love, while the pains and miseries, which are the just consequences of those things, beget hatred and weariness of the world.

Vicious pleasure overcomes the soul that is given to the world. She thinks that there are delights beneath these thorns, because she has never seen or tasted the sweetness of God or the internal delight of virtue.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep me both outwardly in my body and inwardly in my soul, that I may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Exodus 38 (Listen – 4:23)
John 17 (Listen – 3:40)

How to Grow in Prayer

No good at all can come from acting before the world and one’s self as though we knew the truth, when in reality we do not.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Lenten Reflection: How to Grow in Prayer
The Park Forum

“Most of us find it hard to pray,” observes J. Oswald Sanders. True enough, but Sanders, in his book Spiritual Leadership, does not let us accept our difficulty in prayer without highlighting the reality it uncovers: “We do not naturally delight in drawing near to God. We sometimes pay lip service to the delight and power of prayer. We call it indispensable, we know the Scriptures call for it. Yet we often fail to pray.”

There are two things needed to grow in prayer, writes Sanders:

Mastering the art of prayer, like anything else, takes time. The time we give it will be a true measure of its importance to us.

All Christians need more teaching in the art of prayer, and the Holy Spirit is the master teacher. The Spirit’s help in prayer is mentioned in the Bible more frequently than any other help he gives us. All true praying comes from the Spirit’s activity in our souls.

Time and teaching—with these two, Sanders sets the tone for prayer as the intersection of the practical with the spiritual. Cultivating a fruitful prayer life is both an action and a response. Sanders explains:

We are to pray in the realm of the Spirit, for the Holy Spirit is the sphere and atmosphere of the Christian life. Much praying is psychical rather than spiritual, in the realm of the mind alone, the product of our own thinking and not of the Spirit’s teaching. But real prayer is deeper. It uses the body, requires the cooperation of the mind, and moves in the supernatural realm of the Spirit.

God has ordained prayer, and we can be confident that as we meet revealed conditions for prayer, answers will be granted. God sees no contradiction between human free will and divine response to prayer. Our obligation to pray stands above any dilemma concerning the effects of prayer.

As we grow in prayer our dependence on God deepens while, simultaneously, our strength in his Spirit grows. Chambers concludes with this fruitful balance:

The praying Christian wields no personal power and authority, but authority delegated by the victorious Christ to whom that faithful believer is united by faith.

Great leaders of the Bible were great at prayer. They were not leaders because of brilliancy of thought, because they were exhaustless in resources, because of their magnificent culture or native endowment, but because, by the power of prayer, they could command the power of God.

Prayer: The Greeting

I will give thanks to you, for you answered me* and have become my salvation. — Psalm 118.21

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Exodus 35 (Listen – 4:31)
John 14 (Listen – 4:13)

This Weekend’s Readings
Exodus 36 (Listen – 4:47) John 15 (Listen – 3:20)
Exodus 37 (Listen – 3:14) John 16 (Listen – 4:14)

Prayer for Those who Suffer

If we don’t ever want to suffer, we must be very careful never to love anything or anybody. The gifts of love have been the gifts of suffering. Those two things are inseparable.

― Elisabeth Elliot

Lenten Reflection: Prayer for Those who Suffer
The Park Forum

“Evil is not inexhaustible. It is not infinite. It is not worthy of a lifetime of attention,” notes Eugene Peterson. And yet suffering has a way of consuming everything—disconnecting us from community, filling every moment of our attention, and shutting out hope.

Simple answers to suffering are not only insufficient, they are unbiblical. In Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains how the laments of Scripture seek to connect the one who suffers with the fullness of God:

The Psalter has rich instruction for us about how to come before God in a proper way in the various sufferings that the world brings upon us. The Psalms know it all: serious illness, deep isolation from God and humanity, threats, persecution, imprisonment, and whatever conceivable peril there is on earth.

They do not deny it, they do not deceive themselves with pious words about it, they allow it to stand as a severe ordeal of faith, indeed at times they no longer see beyond the suffering, but they complain about it all to God.

Bonhoeffer, who suffered for years in Nazi prisons, is both comforted and sobered by this reality: “Only God can help. But then, all our questions must also again and again storm directly against God.” This is the testimony of the Psalms of lament—if only God can help, then the complexity of our emotions, depth of our pain, and fullness of our cry must be brought before him. Bonhoeffer concludes:

There is in the Psalms no quick and easy surrender to suffering. It always comes through struggle, anxiety, and doubt. No single human being can pray the psalms of lamentation out of his or her own experience. Spread out before us here is the anguish of the entire Christian community throughout all time, as Jesus Christ alone has wholly experienced it.

These raw cries of pain are central to the Christian experience. In Lamentation and the Tears of the World Kathleen O’Connor celebrates the expression of suffering in prayer as an act of faith:

Laments are prayers that erupt from wounds, burst out of unbearable pain, and bring it to language. Laments complain, shout, and protest. They take anger and despair before God and the community. They grieve. They argue. They find fault. Without complaint there is no lament form. Although laments appear disruptive of God’s word, they are acts of fidelity. In vulnerability and honesty, they cling obstinately to God and demand for God to see, hear, act.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for my hope has been in you. — Psalm 25.20

Excerpt From: Phyllis Tickle. “The Divine Hours (Volume Three): Prayers for Springtime.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/l39Ydb.l

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Exodus 34 (Listen – 5:48)
John 13 (Listen – 5:06)