Devotion relax relate release3/18/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() If one seeks to live continually in God’s presence, the time of special prayer is simply a further advance along channels already open. Where there is true love between human persons, it does not take long to establish rapport and companionship again after the absence of one of them. To sit or kneel day-dreaming for thirty or sixty minutes is less likely to lead to spiritual power than a few minutes of vital fellowship. This can come in five minutes, in ten, in thirty, in sixty - or it may not come at all from any length of time. One ought to take time - whatever the time required - to relax, to direct attention from self to God, to pray to God in a receptive mood, to feel spiritual refreshment and direction from God’s presence. With this view I agree in part, but only in part. One ought to take time, it is said, to pass beyond any conscious thought to a joyous sense of the divine Presence, and dwell in this mood until life is reoriented. Some who are masters in the art of prayer seem to imply that no one can really maintain a well-fertilized prayer life without giving this amount of time to it. It is often urged that an hour a day, or a minimum of a half-hour, be set aside for this purpose. This I repeat, for some things I shall say about it are unorthodox. In enumerating the principal occasions of prayer it was said that there ought to be a period of regular, unhurried communion with God, planned for and not left to the mercy of circumstances. However, we must now give more particular attention to what is generally the theme in discussions of private prayer - the time of extended personal devotions. ![]() I have emphasized them because if prayer is to be effective in the common life, it must become a feasible possibility to people where they are, not merely a recommendation as to what might well be done in some other state. They can be engaged in helpfully by persons of any degree of spiritual maturity - from the person who has never prayed in his life but wants to begin to the saint of ripe experience. The occasions of prayer discussed in the preceding chapter require very little extra time in the day’s work. By Georgia Harkness Chapter 8: Private Devotions ![]()
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