In the early days of my Christian walk, my prayer life was mainly a one-way dialog: I shared with God my situation and asked for help; plus petition on behalf of others. The prayer time was nothing more than presenting a long laundry list. Yes, I had tried to put the ACTS concepts (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication) into practice, but soon, that also became somewhat a formula. I long for a two-way dialog, a more organic form of prayers; a natural and spontaneous communication like the earthly parent-child talk.
The breakthrough finally came when a sister introduced this book to me: 等候神 (Wait Upon the Lord). A few key concepts taught in this book transformed my prayer life. One particular phrase made a mark in my heart. I can still recite it to this day: "等候=等待，守候 . . . 像僕人等候主人的吩附，是一種専注，隨時候命的等待” (wait upon the Lord is an active type of waiting, like a servant waiting to take orders from the master). We may not receive particular instructions from God every time when we wait upon Him, but we don’t want to miss it when He does have something to say. When those moments strike, I would like to be able to say “I am here, Lord.” I want to be fully present, fully prepare, with my heart open and my notepad ready.
Like many of you, I am a type A, action driven type of person. “Wait upon the Lord” is not an easy concept for me to practice. Often time, the moment I closed my eyes, tones of to-do lists surfaced in my mind and I would be meditating on my tasks more so than on God. The book taught me a few tips that you may find them useful too. 1) Find a verse to set your focus upon. Whenever your mind wanders away, remind yourself come back and recite the verse slowly, time and again. 2) Start small, may be like 5 minutes first and then gradually increase 3) Always have a notepad next to you, when your mind keeps thinking about some to-do list, drop them down. Once they are logged in the notebook, you won’t worry about forgetting and it will give you the freedom to focus on God.
I can’t tell you how much difference the “wait upon the Lord” practice has blessed me. My prayer life has since been transformed from the one-way, laundry type of praying to a two-way dialog with God. In fact, a big chunk of my prayer time now consists of listening to God and simply dwelling in His presence. Yes, this type of prayer life is possible, even in the busy Bay Area lifestyle. We don’t need to wait to experience it in retreat, we can indeed taste the sweetness daily, if we are willing.
A while ago as I was listening to Peter Tsukahira’s talk on personal altar, it dawned on me that there is a common thread among the messages of our leaders: 1) Pastor Tong teaches us that there is no shortcut in spiritual growth, we have to learn to glue ourselves in God's presence (屬靈的操練是沒有捷徑的, 要學習把自己縛在主面前), 2) Mark Batterson urges us to draw a prayer circle and pray it through, 3) Peter Tsukahira reminds us to find the time and make the place to build a personal altar.
Pursuing a higher spiritual ground needs not to be a mysterious route that we can't understand, it can be a journey that we can all take, one step at a time, through our consistent and persistent daily commitment to bring ourselves to the altar, with our most precious offering, TIME, to present to the Lord. And God will meet us right then and there as we reach up to Him with open hands.
. . . to be continued . . .