I especially loved reading Jeff’s comments. (Jan. 10) I could almost feel my spirit entering in when I read:

“I settle down, the presence fills the air and I’m just with God, eyes open, at this point I usually sit down to enjoy looking around and being with God, my usual phrase is then yes, Lord or something similar, tongues is stilled, occasionally the presence gets so thick the cloud of the Holy Spirit seems to be just below the threshold of vision.”

Wow…what an awesome experience. I suppose I’ve experienced something like this perhaps two or three times in my life. Nice place to be in one’s spiritual life!

I’ve never been able to experience what many others experience when trying to do centering prayer. I’m not sure why, but perhaps I should read up on it or take a Centering Prayer Workshop.

However, I am blessed to have grown to the point of having an understanding of Spiritual Formation and most definitely consider myself to be a contemplative! I was raised SDA and am now Baptist who loves the Lectio Divini way of praying the scriptures, Breath Prayers and sitting quietly before the Lord. I love to bask in God’s presence! I sometimes talk, but mostly try to listen. Oh my, what wonderful things God shows me when I am able to simply empty myself and listen for what God wants to say to me.

It has been mentioned here about the dangers of not being in the scriptures and I do agree with that…most certainly. I am drawn to the scriptures if I do not go there often enough on my own!

But, my most amazing times of spiritual growth, insight, and where I can best hear God’s “marching orders” for my day, come from my alone, quiet spaces/prayer stations, are found in my alone times with the Lord.

I have a wee bit of many different ways of worshiping within me, and I’m sure that tjos is the result of God’s grace in me. I try not to, “throw out the baby with the bathwater!

I must admit that the sound of the word, “Mystic” is a bit scarry to me. I’ve never read even one of the works from the any of these mystics, yet I have picked up a sentence from here and there that are wonderful!

I feel I am a hodg podge of different ways to view worship. I praise God for stretching me in all directions.

Great blog and I will ask to be notified when you get messages!

Thank you hor this fine site!

I’m glad you have this site and that I happened upon it. I will return.

Even though in many ways I am a hardened evangelical/charismatic/Biblicist and have bones to pick with you the size of t. rex’s your site is right up my alley as I am enamored with understanding and knowing of what it is like for the soul to be with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Anyway, the following is a peek into Charismatic spirituality.

I tried nondiscursive contemplative prayer repeatedly over the years and bombed, at best in the deep silence or during the Jesus Prayer of Orthodoxy I would enter a hypnagogic state – quite pleasant to be sure, but a nap by any other name is as sweet.

Here’s where I ended up in my prayer life. I wake up and go through my prayer list ( “in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation”, Psalm 5:3), and cap it off by saying the Lord’s Prayer and reading a chapter of the Bible. Sometime later in the day I do what I call Throne Time, around 30 minutes, based on my understanding of Paul’s “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind” and how worship is described in Revelation. I stand, going on my face occasionally and then returning to standing. I usually begin by confessing that Jesus is the Son of God and putting my mind on the Lord, as it is my experience that stirs up the Holy Spirit in me and brings me into the Father’s presence, I usually then begin praying tongues quietly, knowing I am before the Father, focusing on God before me, I spontaneously intersperse English phrases Oh God, Thank you Lord and the like, I can shake, my muscles can tighten, as I pray, sway, raise my hands, clap, speak louder, speak quieter, may jump around in excitement, in a way my body can feel full to bursting, I confess any sins that may come to mind, intercede for people and situations as they come up, sometimes quite intensely with everything in my body and soul participating though that isn’t a focus as I covered that in the morning, Everything ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes, I never know at the beginning of prayer time what direction things will take or what it’s going to be like. But it’s a cooperative surrendering type of venture, I can always stop if I choose, it’s a mutuality, not a possession, my separate individuality as a human never disappears, I continue to go back and forth between tongues and English

Often (not always) I settle down, the presence fills the air and I’m just with God, eyes open, at this point I usually sit down to enjoy looking around and being with God, my usual phrase is then yes, Lord or something similar, tongues is stilled, occasionally the presence gets so thick the cloud of the Holy Spirit seems to be just below the threshold of vision. I term this being in the Holy of Holies – the secret place of the Most High, Psalm 91:1. Eventually the Spirit of worship lifts, I check the time and see that my allotted time is over and return to my regular life. I see it as a foretaste of our being before the Throne in eternity. All this can happen individually or in group prayer, I especially like it when the Spirit falls on a group and we are all in the peaceful Holy of Holies together, it is so sudden and so definite when it happens, when it lifts, as it must in this fallen world, we are at peace and thankful for a foretaste of eternity .

I was thought that many years ago.

I now practise this in my meditatioon and contemplation each day. and i thank god for the gift of these prayerful and centreing .

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (Deut. 6:6,7)

Jesus was so filled with the word of God, that even on the cross He was found quoting from it. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?… (why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?)” (Ps. 22:1). The Holy Scriptures was the very thoughts of His mind throughout His life.

In temptation it came out of Him. “But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4).

Please, do not give in to the eastern practice of blanking out the mind to find peace. Rather, do just the opposite, and fill it with the Bible. This is just what Satan fears the most, a mind full of Bible truth through the Spirit of God.

A good reference to the movement of eastern mysticism into the church can be found in the book, Deceived by the New Age, by Will Baron.

Thank you, the Lord richest blessings to you all.