Simplicity and focus
As I grow older I am becoming convinced that the single biggest killer of an ability to focus (on a task, prayer, or meditation) is a failure to appreciate the importance of simplicity.
I have numerous interests. If I spend some time on all of them, I have discovered I do not do any of them particularly well. Simplicity (and humility) here is the key: picking a few areas that are of importance, and focussing on these.
When I reflect on the things I want to spend my time on, and steep these things in prayer, a short list emerges. These, then, are the things I will focus my efforts on.
When I simplify my areas of focus (and deliberately do not spend time on things of less value) I notice an increased ability to focus and a higher quality in the outputs of my focus. It is critically important to view time and tasks intentionally: which relationships I invest in, which books I read, what TV I watch, which areas of study and research I explore, which projects I invest in—unless this is driven by what I am convicted is ‘of value’, schedule and focus becomes fragmented, and one begins to be driven by schedule, rather than driving it.
Sustained productivity and ‘bearing fruit’ is unlikely without focus and intention.
I find in particular that my desire and ability to pray is directly proportional to the number of issues I am managing at the time.
Marius Kloppers, CEO of BHP Billiton and ranked 18th in Fortune
magazine’s 2008 list of the world’s most influential people, observed
“I adhere to the same principles in my private life as in my business life. I keep it fairly simple. I don’t have a lot of things. I try to keep the number of issues that have to be managed to a reasonable level.
My personal philosophy is that most companies are not that well run because they try to do too many things and do them really, really badly. I think my philosophy is that if you do the basic things right, if you just reserve all your energy for the basic things, then you’ll be fine.”
Session 5: Prayer and Action
Prayer
Question: Who here is leading the kind of prayer life that they want?
Follow-up: Who struggles with the desire to pray more?
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We undo the burden of feeling we must ‘meet the standard’ of the prayer lives we think others lead.
- Ps 131 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty…
Have you ever hard someone gush about their prayer life and felt like a failure? Many people talk about prayer, discuss around it, and then are very discouraged when they fail to experience the prayer life that others seem to grow in.
Question: Why do you lose the desire to pray? (Lack of results, lack of discipline, burdened and disillusioned, tired/wilderness time)
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As in all things, we look first to Jesus-his life was a balance of spiritual disciplines.
“…prayer will not be established in our lives…unless we are practicing other disciplines such as solitude and fasting. In many Protestant churches prayer and Bible study are held up as THE activities that will make us spiritually rich. But very few people actually succeed in attaining spiritual richness through them and often find them to be intolerably burdensome. The ‘open secret’ of many ‘Bible believing’ churches is that a vanishingly small percentage of those talking about prayer and Bible reading are actually doing what they are talking about. They have not been shown how to change their life as a whole..[italics added].“
-The Spirit of the Disciplines, D. Willard, p. 193.
- For some of us, we simply need balance back in our spiritual life to restore a desire to pray.
- We learn to pray by praying!
“Prayer is to religion what original research is to science.”
-P.T. Forsythe
- It ceases to be a discipline, and becomes a way of life.
“In the beginning we are indeed the subject and the center of our prayers. But in God’s time and in God’s way a Copernican revolution takes place in our heart. Slowly there is a shift in our center of gravity. We pass from thinking of God as part of our lives to the realization that we are part of his life. Wondrously and mysteriously God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center. A conversion of the heart takes place, a transformation of the spirit [italics added].“
-Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, R. Foster, p. 14.
- This is where the Lord ’stands at the door and knocks’ (remember, this bit in Revelations was written to believers, not unbelievers)—he wants to re-orient us so that he can give us more of himself.
- Luke 11:5-12
Question: Apply to study tools we learned yesterday to this passage and discuss. What sticks out?
- Persistence
- Expectation
Question: Have you ever notice that it seems the Lord works powerfully in our lives at retreats and conferences? Why with such regularity, and why do we sometimes not see this regularity in our day to day lives? (Answer: We come to a retreat/conference with expectation)
Question: Where are you at?
Action
“This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines-they are a way of sowing to the Spirit (Gal. 6:8). The Disciplines are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us and transform us. By themselves the Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are God’s means of grace.”
-Celebration of Discipline, R. Foster, p. 7.
Where do you go from here?
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Read Chapter 5 in Deep Rooted in Christ—The Way of Transformation.
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Spend 30 minutes reflecting and praying on the following two questions:
- Ask the Holy Spirit to come and profile your primary strengths and weaknesses. In what area do you have a weakness? (might be an inability to focus, excessive talking, life too busy, particular sin, etc)
- As a leader, the nature of influence is such that our lives are the primary vehicle by which we influence others. In what area of your life do you desire your influence to increase?
- Select a spiritual discipline or habit that you will commit to practicing regularly for at least six months.
- Return to group and in groups of two, discuss what you have chosen to do, and pray for each other.
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Return to large group for worship and prayer.
Additional scriptures for later meditation
Readings: Daniel 5:31-34, Luke 14:31-33, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 10:38-42 (meditate on what Jesus means by ‘only one thing is needed’, or in other translations, ‘the only necessary thing’), Luke 11:1-13
Psalms: Psalm 149:1-5, 96:2-3, 119:169, 147:13-21, 42:1-7, 66:7-12 and 16-17, 144:5-8, 116:4-8, 51:11-13
Taking over
“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” -Rom 4:3
“The story of Abraham makes it plain that all matters of salvation and righteousness are God’s business; if we want to be involved with God and his ways, we have to let God do it his way [italics added]. Abraham didn’t get any say in the matter and neither do we. Nothing in the Abraham story suggests he did anything to become righteous. The verbs used of Abraham, ‘believe’ (5 times), ‘trust’ (once), and ‘have faith’ (eleven times) signify acts that get all their content from the person and action of God. All three verbs indicate a trusting readiness to let God work his will in Abraham without any well-intentioned assistance from Abraham. This may be the hardest thing to understand and practice in the Christian life, this ‘not doing’, this letting God initiate by command and promise, this trusting in a participating way, not just at the beginning but continuously all our lives [italics added]. Too often, once we get a little experience and confidence, we want to ‘take over’. And then the trouble starts.”
-note on Romans 4:1-25 by Eugene Peterson in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible (NRSV)
I believe this prime concept of ‘letting God initiate’ so that I might ‘trust in a participating way’ in my life has become possible in inverse proportion to the successes I encounter in life. Lord, may this not be so—teach me to ‘not do’ until you initiate; teach me to work cooperatively with you, and to learn to let you lead, and to spend my time and energy on the things that matter to you, and not on the things that bring me credit or recognition.
Session 2: Solitude Exercise
Session 2: Solitude
“In solitude, we purposefully abstain from interaction with other human beings, denying ourselves companionship and all that comes from our conscious interaction with others. We close ourselves away; we go to the ocean, to the desert, the wilderness, or to the anonymity of the urban crowd…. solitude is choosing to be alone…”
Intro
- Question: Is anyone here a tradesman? Do you know someone who has gone through an apprenticeship? Answer: An apprentice spends time with a master in order to learn to live and do as they do.
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We are apprentices of Jesus.
- We get this. We’re leaders.
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Question: But why is apprenticeship to Jesus of any value? Isn’t it enough to just ‘believe’?
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We will not become like Jesus if we do not apprentice ourselves to him (And we will not be able to do the things he did)
-failure to understand how we become like Jesus and learn to live and to do as he lived and did is chronic in today’s church
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The “way of the light yoke and easy burden”, the “abundant life”, assume apprenticeship to Jesus and assume a life of discipline
-In other words, freedom is not accidental
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It is the key to evangelism and disciple-making
- Daniel’s story re: ‘mommy, a man is at the door who looks like Jesus’
- As evangelicals, we are by default taught that ‘the gospel truth is enough, and if we have got apologetics down or can mount a cogent argument for the historical Jesus, that’s all you need for evangelism’. It’s not. Our lives and our actions are a primary vehicle to calling others to Jesus.
- We call others to follow Jesus because we believe that the way of Jesus is the best—at some point, we have made a decision not to follow Buddha or Mohammed, because we have become convinced that the way of life that Jesus offers now (not just in the future) is simply beautiful and perfect. Do our lives seem like ‘best practice’ to others?
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- If we apprentice ourselves to Jesus, we will take a careful look at his life and the things he did—and practice those things.
Solitude helps us to place ourselves before the Lord for transformation and create space to be ‘with God’.
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Solitude was a regular practice for Jesus: Matt 4:1-11, Luke 6:12, Matt 14:13, Matt 14:23, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:31, Luke 5:16, Matt. 17:1-9, Matt 26:36-46
Mark 1:35 records an interesting decision made by Jesus after his time of solitude and prayer—picture Jesus here experiencing phenomenally successful ministry, and then going off for prayer alone, and returning with a decision to leave this comfortable place and go elsewhere. Jesus only did what he ’saw the Father doing’, and His Father told him to move on in that time of solitude. Would we hear God’s voice to move on if we were experiencing such phenomenal success? Chances are, no, unless we were alone and free of the distractions clouding our ability to hear the Lord’s direction.
- Solitude removes our normal influences. The normal course of our day-to-day interactions locks us into patterns of feeling, thought, and action that are geared to a world set against God-only solitude helps us break free of the influence of these thought patterns.
Solitude frees us from the control that others and our surroundings exert on our minds.
- Freedom: This frees us from some of the obstacles in our path to hearing God’s voice. We don’t HAVE to be alone and still to hear God speak, but solitude is the training ground for being able to hear his voice anywhere-we’ll be able to recognize it in the chaos of the workday if we’ve learned to hear it in solitude.
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Training: We train to reach inward ‘heart solitude’ by means of outer solitude. Inner solitude=freedom from the influences of surrounding and people around us, and responsive to the Lord no matter where we are. Have you ever known someone who appeared completely still and peaceful inside no matter the circumstances? Jesus lived in inward ‘heart solitude’.
“These tiny snatches of time are often lost to us. What a pity! They can and should be redeemed. They are times for inner quiet, for reorienting our lives like a compass needle. They are little moments that help us to be genuinely present where we are (italics added).”
Exercise:
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Find a place in the retreat centre or Park where you can be alone. In the next two hours:
- Read excerpts from Making all Things New, by Henri Nouwen.
- Reflect on and and prayerfully answer any 2 questions
- At the end of 2 hours, return to your small groups and discuss your answers, and your experience with solitude. After twenty minutes return to the large group and we will share a few or our experiences with each other.
Additional scriptures for later meditation
Readings: Matt 6:1-4, Hebrews 12:2-4, Luke 9:18-22, Romans 8:14-15, 17, Joel 2:12-13, John 12:27-43, Luke 17:22-25
Psalms: 107:2-3, 7-8, 18:1-2, 62:6, 119:55, 25:3-4, 1, 5:13-15, 40:10-1
