In her introduction to Every Eye Beholds You, edited by Thomas J. Craughwell, prominent scholar of world religions Karen Armstrong, writes that all the world's great prophets and sages have spent very little time telling their disciples what the ought to believe, that they have rather "insisted that before you can have faith, you must live a certain way." Prayer, in other words, is not born of belief but a practice that creates faith.
I love this idea. We in the western tradition have gone at prayer backwards, praying because we believe. To practice prayer this way means that we do not bring to our prayer preconceived notions of who God is. We do not force him into a mold of our own making. In this kind of prayer, God is encountered not seized.
2 comments:
Interesting. I found myself remembered the nuns at elementary school telling us that if we didn't like going to church, we should still act like we enjoy it, because it's our chance to meet God and if we meet him with a smile we might get to see him smiling back.
Maybe I can use this to try to jump start some quiet time with God. I have been not exactly consistent these days.
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