Yesterday’s conversation brings me to the second tool: coherence, judging ideas by whether or not they hang together.
Here, again, this is a tool with its limits. Einstein was right, consistency (a near synonym for coherence), can be the hobgoblin of little minds; and sometimes divergent ideas can give us multiple ways of looking at a spiritual challenge that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
But coherence has its virtues. Ideas that hang together can point you along a spiritual path that lengthens and thrives by virtue of the way in which you are brought back time and again to ways of thinking about a spiritual challenge.
Take, for example, the ideas about prayer. You could entertain notions about prayer that suggest that God can be manipulated magically — get the words right, make sure your attitude is good, God will respond. At other times you might assume that prayer is shaped by relationship. God cares about me and that is the larger issue. Whatever my prayers are, answered and unanswered, God loves me better than I love myself.
But, on the whole, if you lurch between the first and second kinds of prayer, the experience would probably be deeply frustrating and confusing. Eventually you would probably opt for one view or the other —- if not abandon prayer altogether.
I can promise you that if you begin to think of prayer in terms that emphasize relationship and God’s overwhelming love, you will begin to find prayer more meaningful and fulfilling. One of the best ways to see if you are being coherent in your prayers is to listen to what you pray and ask yourself questions like these: Does this prayer build up my relationship with God? Am I bringing all of myself, warts and all, to this relationship? Is this prayer an honest reflection of what I am thinking and feeling? Do I ‘listen’ for God to lead me, or do I do all the talking? Does this prayer rely on the conviction that God loves me better than I can ever love myself?
Paying attention to whether or not your spiritual ideas are coherent can be life-giving. They can center your life and provide a basis for spiritual growth and deepening.
Fred, I love your words on bringing all myself to God. The good, bad, and in-between. This action makes me extremely vulnerable. It helps me to think upon the fact that God made Himself vulnerable by loving me. He knew I would fail and even worse betray Him yet He needed and wanted me so what else could He do but love me? I need Jesus and even though I push Him aside by stuff of life I know nothing satifies me in my deepest parts like Him. Yet I pursue the less substantial at times. Why? I think because prayer is honesty both with God and myself. I am changed by prayer. When I feel His presence I am ashamed of my actions/or lack of them. Yet I recommend prayer to myself and all others as the only pure satisfaction of life. Prayer is worth all the effort of stipping myself bare and then allowing the Holy Spirit to cloth me with the dearest of all relationships which is being in relationship with Jesus. No doubt about it – prayer is very hard work.