Paul Miller’s comment in chapter ten of A Praying Life strikes right to the heart: “A significant source of cynicism is the fracture between my heart and my behavior. It goes something like this: My heart gets out of tune with God, but life goes on. So I continue to perform and say Christian things, but they are just words. I talk about Jesus without the presence of Jesus. There is a disconnect between what I present and who I am.”
This is a commentary, in many ways, of our Christian journey. Getting our heart back “in tune” with God then becomes a major element of our life of prayer. But, how does that happen? What does this kind of repentance look like so that “the split personality [is brought] together and thus restores integrity to life”? Those are some of the questions we probably need to ask ourselves and one another on a regular basis.
Paul Miller says that such repentance begins with an admission of our own impurity, our own sin; we first get our own heart back in tune with God. Then we “develop an eye for Jesus,” looking in mundane encounters for the “odor” of authenticity in others where “inner and outer lives [are] matched.”
How often do I look at this journey from an individual perspective, rather than as something in which the community around me also participates for my development and growth as well as theirs?
Thoughts Along The Journey 
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