Thoughts Along The Journey

I’m not sure there is any better way to finish our study of A Praying Life other than quoting from the beginning and end of Paul Miller’s final chapter:

“In the stories I’ve told in this book, we can see God weaving a tapestry.  In my experience, as we abide in him, he usually shows us what he is doing.  But sometime he doesn’t … We live in many overlapping stories, most of which are larger than us.  Each of us will die with unfinished stories.  We can never forget that God is God. Ultimately it is his story, not ours …

Some stories aren’t tied up until heaven.  Because of Kim, Jill longs for heaven.  This desire permeates her conversation.  Jill doesn’t say, “It’s a beautiful day outside.”  She says, “This would be a good day for Jesus to come back.  Everyone can see him.”  Jill wants to go home.  Living in unfinished stories draws us into God’s final act, the return of Jesus.  While we wait for his return, it is easy to predict the pattern of the last days.  The book of Revelation pictures a suffering church, dying as creation itself is unraveling.  Through suffering God will finally make his church beautiful and reveal his glory.  In the desert you see his glory.  In the last days the bride will be made beautiful, pure, waiting for her lover.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

May the knowledge of the coming return of our King cause us to persevere with grace and courage in a “praying life”!

I would love to hear your reflections on this book in light of these questions.  Please post them as comments to this post.  I will make a summary of that feedback for a future post.

• What has God shown you about a “praying life” through reflecting on the chapters in this book?
• How do you desire to grow and change in your “praying life”?

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“When life makes sense, it becomes a journey, a spiritual adventure.  Writing down the adventure as it happens gives us a feel for our place in the story God is weaving in our lives.  Journaling helps us to become aware of the journey.”  Journaling is not one of my strengths or common practices, but I recognize the benefit of processing life from time to time through journaling as Paul Miller describes in the quote above.

What was new to me in this chapter, though, was Paul Miller’s insight that prayer journaling provides a means to ‘become aware of self on the journey.’  It is an avenue to self-awareness. 

Here’s how he puts it: “The modern quest for self-fulfillment is a secularized version of Christianity’s discovery of the self.  Without the Shepherd guiding us to see our true selves in relationship to him, we can lose our way and become obsessed with self. Instead of seeing our bent toward evil, we can become increasingly touchy, supersensitive to self but insensitive to others.  We no longer see ourselves clearly.  The spiritual pilgrimage is the opposite.  The discovery of self in relationship to God leads to a lifestyle of repentance.”  So, a prayer journal could serve as an opportunity not just to process life, but to become more aware of how I am interacting with and ‘being received’ by others.

Two questions can guide this process:

• “How am I doing?  What is coming at me?  Am I happy, sad, thankful, discouraged, angry, frustrated?”
• “What is God saying to me?  What does the Word say to me?”

 Writing down our reflections to these questions can help better discern what God is teaching us. 

What’s been your experience with ‘prayer journaling’?

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