The LINK: 10/24
Happy October!
As the nights lengthen, and the darkness starts to have a larger foothold, may you turn to our God, who is Light.
This past month, I received quite a bit of positive feedback from my last letter about the Jesus Prayer, and so I thought I’d add a few more thoughts.
To start, I quoted from a 19th century book, but that was the culmination of this prayer being passed through the Eastern Orthodox tradition. As early as the 5th century, there was a Bishop named Diadochos of Photiki (Photiki is in modern-day northwest Greece). And in writing on “spiritual knowledge” his words have been recorded:
“When we have blocked all its outlets by means of the remembrance of God, the intellect (read: our mind) requires of us imperatively some task which will satisfy its need for activity. For the complete fulfilment of [the mind’s] purpose we should give it nothing but the prayer ‘Lord Jesus’.”
Over the centuries, more phrases were added to that prayer “Lord Jesus”, to the point that it eventually became the prayer I recommended last month: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”.
Now this is a very insightful thought. Other writers have paraphrased Diadochos (and other Christian writers) as saying: “Your mind is always grasping around, so you might as well give it something to do”. In prayer, for most of us (*raises hand*) our minds can stray. We try to pray, but we wander to other things: the past, things that worry us, random memories.
So whether it’s just the words Lord Jesus, or the whole prayer, this can be a simple way of focusing in your time of prayer. Maybe you pray through the Psalms, you have a set of prayers you use, or maybe you shoot from the hip when you pray for others and yourself. As your pastor, I don’t really care about how you get there, but I certainly hope you do.
But if you need a way to settle your mind in prayer, I’ll just offer the instructions I gave last month: Breath in one line, and exhale after next (such as: [Inhale] Lord Jesus Christ, [exhale] Son of God [inhale] have mercy on me [exhale] a sinner).
However you pray, may you experience what Isaiah 26:3 proclaims “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on you”.
May that peace be yours,