Prayer 04 – Being with God
Part 4: Prayer – Being with God
INTRODUCTION
We never mature beyond any of the four stages of prayer we are exploring in this Prayer Series, but the further we progress in prayer, the more we desire to speak to God, to listen to God, and to just be with God.
Think about how you can tell how close you are to someone by how comfortable you feel sitting together in silence. Early on, relationships are full of words and activities. But as you get closer, while you still talk and do things together, you also start to deeply enjoy just being in each other's presence.
In the later stages of prayer, our human comparisons start to fall short. But the ancient metaphor for this stage is marriage. There's an intimacy in marriage that’s about being deeply connected on a level beyond words—a kind of communion.
Followers of Jesus have long seen this sacred love as a picture of union with God. This wordless prayer is called “contemplation”.
At its core, it means to contemplate: to look at and gaze upon the beauty of God, receiving his love through Christ and the Spirit, and then giving your love back in return.
TEACHING TIP
This reflection question section should take about 10 minutes. Give each person about 1 minute to
share their experience. If you have more than 10 members, you may choose a few to share or get a
few volunteers to share.
The purpose is to help them recall times when they have practiced contemplative prayer.
Reflection Question 1:
In what ways have you experienced glimpses of this kind of prayer with God?
TEACHING TIP
The teaching section should take about 15 minutes.
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
Now, contemplative prayer means different things to different people at different times and places in church history. But there are three basic dimensions to contemplative prayer:
- Looking
- Yielding
- Resting
1. Looking at God, looking at you, in love.
2 Cor 3:18
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
The term "contemplative prayer" comes from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, where he talks about "unveiled faces" and contemplating the Lord's glory. Did you catch that phrase? Paul paints a picture of intimacy, like a bride with her husband, using the word "contemplate."
In Greek, the word is kato-treezo, which means "to gaze at" or "to direct the inner gaze of your heart at." Another name for this type of prayer is "beholding prayer," because it's about beholding or looking at the Lord's glory.
In the New Testament, "glory" isn't about God's fame like at an awards show; it's about his presence and beauty. In the Old Testament, God's glory was seen in the cloud over Mt. Sinai or the Tabernacle.
So, to contemplate God's glory is to look at his beauty, goodness, and love pouring out towards you – that's what lies at the heart of our faith.
But here’s the tricky part: How do you "look" at a God who is invisible? Scripture tells us, "No one has seen God."
Bonaventure, the medieval monk, said we have three "eyes": the eye of the body for seeing the physical world, the eye of the mind for ideas and thoughts, and the eye of the heart for seeing God.
Prayer is about bringing your mind into your heart to be with God and focusing on Him with loving attention. At its core, contemplation is simply about giving loving attention to our Father and recognizing his love, compassion, and goodwill towards us.
2. Yielding to His love
There's a type of prayer where you work with God to change things – that's called petition and intercession, and it's important and necessary. But there's another type of prayer where you work, not to change things, but to accept them as they are.
Think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He starts by praying, "Father, let this cup pass from me!" He’s asking to change his circumstances. But he ends with, "Not my will, but yours be done."
This act of yielding, of letting go of outcomes and surrendering our will to God’s will, is at the heart of contemplative prayer.
Robert Mulholland, a New Testament theologian, describes it as the deep inner posture of joyfully releasing our life to God in absolute trust – without demands, conditions, or reservations. It's not passive resignation or fatalistic acceptance of whatever happens. Instead, it's actively turning our whole being to God so that his presence, purpose, and power can work through us in every situation.
It's simply saying, "God, here I am, I'm yours." Not as an act of submission, but as a surrender to love.
3. Resting in God’s love
When we ask God for things, whether it's petition or intercession, it feels like work because it is. We’re teaming up with God to bring his kingdom into our lives and the world!
That’s why Orthodox Jews don't do any intercessory prayer on the Sabbath. But contemplative prayer feels more like rest, like a portable Sabbath. It’s different from other types of prayer because it’s less about what we do and more about what God does in us.
In contemplative prayer, we simply rest in his love. That's really what prayer is about: experiencing the love of Christ. It's how we live out Paul's prayer in Ephesians:
Ephesians 3:16-19
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This type of prayer lets us soak in the complete love of God, which saints often describe as his "loving light." Some even call it "silent love," while others simply say true prayer is all about love.
In today’s world, where we often feel chronically tired from our performance-driven culture, this kind of prayer – just resting in and receiving God's love, accepting our identity as well-loved children of God, and offering our love back in worship – is our lifeline.
TEACHING TIP
Reflection Question 2 should take 10 minutes.
Feel free to skip this question if it's getting too lengthy.
Reflection Question 2:
Which dimension do you feel God is prompting you to focus on the most: loving, yielding, or resting?
CONCLUSION
The Daily Prayer Rhythm:
Followers of Jesus have practiced a daily prayer rhythm for thousands of years. In the Hebrew tradition, which Jesus followed, people stopped to pray three times a day – morning, noon, and night. This rhythm shows up in the Psalms and stories like Daniel in the lions' den.
In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came during morning prayer, and other key events in Acts also happened during set prayer times.
St. Benedict and the monastics increased this rhythm to six times a day. Later, the Book of Common Prayer adjusted it to twice a day – morning and evening – to make it easier for everyone.
The idea is that to pray all the time, we need to pray regularly throughout the day. By pausing even for a few minutes, we can reconnect with God and practice being in his presence.
But the idea is all the same, that to pray all the time, we need to pray much of the time. We need to pause at intervals throughout the day, even for only a few minutes, and practice being in his presence.
Imagine living like Jesus did, completely surrounded by the loving presence of the Trinity. Picture yourself looking at God, feeling his love for you, surrendering to that love, and just resting in it. Doesn’t that sound incredibly beautiful and compelling? If you long for that kind of life, you can start right where you are. Begin slowly, begin humbly, by simply being with God.
TEACHING TIP
Reflection Question 3 should take 10 minutes.
Reflection Question 3:
What is one thing you can begin doing to start a daily prayer rhythm, to practice being in God’s presence all the time?
Adapted from Practicing the Way (practicingtheway.org)