The Theological Grace of True Contemplation

“True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace.”

— Thomas Merton

GRACE pervades life in and through an obedient, surrendered soul.

It would be hard to believe the witness of a work of God’s grace through someone not surrendered and disobedient.

But the obedience we speak of is not simply obedience at the level of sin; it’s an obedience at the level of virtue.

The busy, cluttered soul probably has no problem with the initial graces — the reconciliation of hurts and the ability to go at depth with the soul. But they perhaps are at a loss to explain how to enter what they truly need — a true contemplation.

A true contemplation is a special kind of surrender in this day and age of busyness.

It is an obedience to throw it all away for just God alone.

Obedience that sees nothing ahead of it but God — not one distraction prevailing — is an obedience often required, especially regarding contemplation.

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What are the practical graces of a truer contemplation?

We have discussed the actual need of drawing aside from the world, from people, from tasks, and from distractions, but the practice of grace of the inner life is even a negation of our very selves.

It’s not simply about making time, but aggressively pairing away from every care.

It’s not just about finding sources for direction and nourishment, but embodying these contemplations in every fissure of our being.

It’s about jettisoning the important things for a time. It’s about departing from our routine selves.

Practical graces of true contemplation are moments in time strung together in series. Such moments transcend the ordinary, and in such moments the true imperatives of life are seen unadorned but kingly as they are.

It is amazing how our losses and the depth of our grief — as moments of eternality — speak of the truer contemplations our souls are desperate for. See how those massive disappointments of life come back in our defence? See how those dark nights we endured come back as God speaking into us from eternity?

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Our dark nights of endurance are our truer contemplations where God’s Presence is manifest.

Those very times of soul bitterness and contempt, worked through, become the very fuel for praise.

For the depths endured in sullen contemplation there are the heights scalable for spiritual contemplations of bliss.

For every abyss descended there is a spiritual peak to be ascended.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

The Joy That Seeks Us Through Pain

ONE beautiful couple, two families strained by loss, three times as much joy found.

Chance meetings are never really that in the Christian life; indeed, even in the lives of those who disdain God there is a remarkable flow of his Presence, yet they are blind for the seeing of it. We had a ‘chance’ meeting recently.

Two most dear people had been brought together, by God, into matrimony; two genuine disciples. In that tapestry, the weaving of two lives into one, there was an unknowable history — that only God could have engineered. Ordinary people linked extraordinarily by the design of God. Ordinary people used extraordinarily by God.

So two ordinary couples — who have extraordinary stories to share — came together. They were a mutual encouragement to each other. Their time went fast, and much ground was covered. Joy was the centrepiece of their song.

And that Joy became an anthem for one couple to shine into the lives of others.

***

The Joy that seeks us through pain is the Joy that lights our life alive.

That Joy is the Lord, himself. His Presence shining in, myriad refractions of light, not in any way defused, is so evidently pervasive we cannot help but be overcome by Joy, through joy, to joy.

The Joy that seeks us through pain takes us into himself. Joy not only seeks us with all that Love would do — a love that will not let go of us, ever — it takes us through pain into joy. Maybe it’s the only way to authentic joy — through the rites of pain.

How do we explain this surreal joy that takes over when we have otherwise been floored by a torrential storm? We ought to have been wrought to death, but somehow, through pain, we are brought to joy. It is only possible for the disciple, for they have lost their lives in order to gain their true self.

We ought to be convinced as to the role of pain. Joy seeks us through pain so we might become Joy as a direct outcome of our pain.

Jesus, himself, through the Holy Spirit, is Joy.

***

Joy emboldens translucent beings,

Those very people who have spiritual seeings.

Beaming through dawn, shining til dusk,

Joy’s light is what makes faith its must.

Irrepressible ever is Joy’s light it seems,

Through Joy it’s possible to realise dreams.

Three little letters of capacity engorged,

Oh what a destiny Joy has forged!

Power for bliss and the ease to thank,

Joy rises above the life that sank.

And this Captain of Grace is a prayer,

The virtue in struggle to dare beyond scare.

And still...

Joy through light gives hope,

Joy is the only strength to cope.

***

Joy is a virtuous laser beam that shines from within out into the lives of others.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

Recognition to the grand hymn, O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by George Matteson.

5 Different Ways to Personal Revival Through Retreat

EVERYONE needs to retreat at one time or other.

Retreat is not about giving up on anything other than our insane pace, chronic drivenness, surface-level superficiality, and hardness of soul.

To retreat is to reinvent the self and reconnect with our soul.

We all desire, need, and deserve reconnection time. To retreat is to reconnect with ourselves, through reconnecting with God, so our relationships will have the feature of connection about them.

If you crave time alone to bush walk out in the lavish environs of nature, then a contemplative retreat is for you. When you don’t want people hassling you anymore and you hanker for silence, reflection, and space, you’re a contemplative.

If you feel emptied of depth at the level of your mind, and studying is your thing, an intellectual retreat recharges you. You are not so much an ‘intellectual’ as someone curious to go to the cognitive depths — to be challenged in your mind. An intense Bible study is your thing.

When you feel charged up to serve, and especially if mission work is your thing, a change is as good as a holiday. To go and serve connects us with our personal entreaties of social justice. Serving people may not deplete us, but actually invigorate us.

Some true extroverts only feel truly engaged with themselves in the company of others; particularly if depth of relationship can be achieved. A relational retreat is something akin to a conference. It mixes rest with rapport.

Some people respond to mysticism in the way of the charismata of worship. To reconnect with the Holy Spirit and have spiritual awakenings is the charismatic’s idea of a great retreat.

***

All retreats are about reflection, depth, renewal, and change.

The best retreats match our personalities for renewal, and may well combine elements of the contemplative, the intellectual, service, relational, and the charismatic.

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We all desire, need, and deserve reconnection time.

To retreat is to do soul maintenance.

Our souls need probably the gentlest of care, and to respond to our personal needs is the greatest favour of self-care we can do for ourselves which enables our work with others for God.

Taking a monthly retreat of a day out, to complement our weekly Sabbath time, is wise. To add to these times of haven with an annual or even three-monthly getaway is also recuperative.

Retreat is the way we safely advance in life. It is beneficial for our physical, intellectual, social, emotional, relational, interpersonal, and spiritual health.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

You Will Get Justice, In Jesus’ Name

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.

“However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

— Luke 18:6-8 (NIV)

JOURNEYING out of the pervasive cruelty of injustice into the vast sweeping plains of justice is the long sought after wish of the many — like those of Ancient Near East. And that justice, then, was like cool streams to sow hope into a barren soul; to quench the thirst of the faithful native. They had little to hope upon other than their Lord, Yahweh, who promised to never leave them nor forsake them.

Their Lord had promised that, by their faithfulness, their prayers would not be forlorn.

We have that self-same hope.

I have ventured through injustices that seemed hopeless at the time; I was defenceless, helpless, and by my own reckoning, pathetic. Yet, I come to recognise, now, this day afresh, that God was planning that actual redemption that I experienced years after from the Ancient of Days.

My experience of suffering, that went on far too long if you ask me, was eventually vindicated. My persistence in prayer was justified. Even an unjust judge accedes to a persistent person. How much more does God wish to rain petals of justice over us!

***

You who seek your justice for the royal desolation of your unique experience — yes, woefully, yours — will get your justice in Jesus’ name, if you persist.

It is easier to persist than you think.

To keep going in a straight line on your present path is easy, though everything about every step is unutterably arduous. Keep going. Keep stepping. Though you may not see where you are going for the water inhibiting your eyes, or have any energy left to fight, just keep doing what you have been doing.

Do not give up. When we do good things despite our spirit’s languor — an irreconcilable fatigue — we are most certainly reaping a harvest, if we do not give up.

You have one task in the season of injustice:

Stay alert to your relationship with your God who seems ever distant and even uncaring. Knowing externally that the nature of God is entirely other than distant and uncaring, we repel Satan’s soul-spearing darts. Stay faithful. Keep praying. Pray by day and by night. Make your life an anthem of prayer for your justice.

And keep obeying God, no matter how silly it feels!

Your justice will come.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

The Sheer Worthiness of Prayer for Life Contentment

PRAYER is a basic thing. It is the thing that stands as the single barrier to and, therefore, opportunity toward change in our lives.

And, we all want something to shift, to change, to transform us; and for God’s grace to envelope us to that end.

If we wish to lose weight, we should pray that God would free us of the desire to overeat. If we would want a closer relationship with Jesus, we ought to pray to be free of the desire to be distracted by less important things. If we want what we do not yet have, shouldn’t we first pray for a desire to enjoy those things God has already given to us?

If we wish to control the desires, surely it is via prayer — a consistent, dripping-tap type of prayer — that we will, through God’s inordinate grace, achieve it.

If we wish it that our wills be joined to his — whatever God’s will is as we can truthfully discern it — we will put what is important to God, first; and foremost.

If we wish it that God’s will join ours, we are mistaken. It can’t end well. But if we pray that his will might subterfuge our own, over time, then we will surely be blessed.

God’s will — on a certain subject — will, by prayer, be-come to us.

This is God’s will in sum: that ours is transformed into his!

When our wills are joined to his — by prayer, which filters gradually from our conscious being to our unconscious being — we will eventually come to be blessed by a miracle.

A miracle is a thing experienced, we prayed for, that we could not do for ourselves.

***

If we should wish for others to be freed of their bonds of slavery, to become bond servants of the only true King, we will pray to that end. We will not coerce people by our actions and inactions, but we will rely faithfully on prayer, and we will even step out of the way in order that God would show us his glory — that he doesn’t need us!

We are not necessary for God to procure his miracles of grace. God’s only necessity is that we move out of the way.

Prayer works when we step out of God’s way.

It can only work by faith; otherwise, we are becoming God and that is the biggest fallacy of the devil, ever.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

The Holy Spirit’s Power for Healing Through the Laying On of Hands

The Holy Spirit ‘shows up’ very unexpectantly sometimes...

BATTLING a prideful, ambivalent spirit at a pastoral retreat, we were asked if we needed ‪prayer. (“I don’t want to do this, Lord,” was my heart.) Then it was asked of others who had not opted to be prayed for, if they would gather around and pray for those who needed prayer. I said, “Okay, Lord, I’ll do it.” I prayed for a pastor who’d been in pastoral work twenty years — double my time; someone I also look up to in the blogosphere.

The moment I placed my ‎hands on his shoulders something happened in my spirit!

I prayed, and I prayed words that were not mine. Immediately the hardness inhibiting my soul was replaced with a spirit of peace, if not, levity. Soon it was a case of euphoric laughter at the funny things the speaker was saying. I felt like I was even laughing like I’d taken laughing gas. I didn’t even care if I was silly so long as I wasn’t laughing inappropriately, because normally I’d laugh in some sort of reserve.

The Holy Spirit worked to ‎heal me even though it was my pride that predicated my willingness to pray for this man of God. Isn’t God good?

The next day, in a better frame of mind, I had the privilege to pray for a pastor who I have enormous respect for. God has been working powerfully in his ‪soul for what seems a millennium of months. His life has been tropical. Again, my words were not my own, praise God. Prayer works.

The Holy Spirit can do anything He wants, despite us at times.

***

These two examples of simple, ordinary obedience, even in the mode of sinful pride in the first case, illustrate that God is never far away from healing us if we’ll let him.

The Holy Spirit, through the laying on of hands — mine on another person — healed me! It is most usually the other way around. Rarely, if ever, have I encountered such a transaction of God’s power coming through a person to me as I prayed for them.

Believe!

Even in the case of aiding in another person’s healing through prayer, the Holy Spirit can heal us, who are praying for them.

The power of prayer is such that the laying on of hands becomes the conduit for God’s healing power.

God’s Spirit is doing the unexpected. There is power for healing through prayer.

***

Power comes through and lands,

Healing by the laying on of hands,

The simple faith of prayer,

God’s power through rarefied air.

Awesome experience of wonder,

Splits all of hell asunder,

Prayer breaks Satan’s yoke,

God makes Satan a joke.

But there is no need here for pride,

Just let the Spirit by prayer to ride,

No fear that Satan will steal,

When the Spirit gives power to heal.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

Learning to See, Learning to Be Free

GETTING into our own head is not something that many of us want to do. But it is what we need.

What we need is not what we want, but when we have seen we will never go back.

Some of us resist getting into our own heads because it’s not a safe place to be. Others of us don’t want to go there because we are too busy. Others, again, refuse such an awakening because there is only more work to do. Some have no need because they already know what they need to know, and arrogantly ignorantly so. But the point is we all resist getting into our own heads.

Getting into our own head is the consciousness of our being. It’s opening up to see.

Learning to see is the objective of life.

Only when we can see will we notice God’s Presence in our lives.

When we are seeing, we are receiving God’s revelation.

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If we do not go into our heads we will not sense the invitation of God to enter into our own hearts.

Seeing is a heart activity. Once our mind is opened the heart soon follows.

We know when we are seeing because all of life — in the moment — is different. Our head has taken us captive. And we are so very thankful, because we could not have procured such an event of existence without the Lord’s help.

In the head, we are soon in our heart. Feeling is wonderful when truth is communicated. Even if that truth is inherently exposing.

It’s wonderful because the truth cannot hurt us. The truth can only help us. God wants to help. Seeing is the way to receive that help.

Seeing is an eternal opportunity. It’s not only ever present, it’s the connection with the eternal. God takes us for a time into his Presence far from this world whilst being in this world — one of the most paradoxical realities, surely.

***

“Come, see.” It is the Father’s invitation, the Son’s invocation, and the Spirit’s prophetic voice, spoken from eternity in our world. The voice of God is so completely inaudible so far as the world is concerned. Yet, it is a sweet horn on an ethereal frequency.

We must get into our own head. Then comes the entry of entries, into the heart of matters.

A free mind opens the heart to feel. A heart opened is a mind freed to be real.

The deeper well is a place to be drenched in the goodness of God’s Presence; to jettison the world without ever leaving it.

To see with eternal eyes is an ever-present possibility. It is life itself.

Learning to fly,

Is learning to see,

Watching the self die,

And finally to be free.

Learning to see,

Eyes only for the Lord,

Satisfied to just Be,

With Him who’s adored.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

The Purpose of the Spirit’s Revelation of Personal Sin

SIN is the friend of the person of God… it reveals opportunities for growth.

But only through the Holy Spirit does such revelation as an opportunity come.

We need not be discouraged when we sin. Rather, we are to thank the Holy Spirit for revealing our lack so we might repent and grow.

The purpose of the Spirit’s revelation of our personal sin is to highlight exactly how and when we have strayed from God’s holy objective in our lives. This happens numerous times every single day. It is nothing that should disappoint us, barring the momentary shame that is right when our flesh is mortified in the sight of truth that we are not God.

I spoke out of turn with my father-in-law only last night, bringing a fellow brother into judgment, because my motive was for a petty personal vindication. The Holy Spirit showed me this morning that there was no need to highlight such a point; this revelation was about my flesh need to be treated nicely. But the disciple of Christ can never expect to be treated nicely when their example of love is the cross. They are to love despite what treatment they get, and love all the more when treatment is harsh.

The very good thing about such revelations is this: they remind us that we are not God and never will be; that we will ever need to depend on the Spirit as our only guide.

True discipleship is being aware of God’s otherness to such an extent that we are constantly learning of his otherness. It’s, appositely, the practice of not feeling condemned when we are reminded of his otherness. We are at one and the same time reminded of his grace!

True discipleship is in amplifying the divine tension between our sin and God’s grace.

The more we are brought face to face with our sin, whilst at the same time, we magnify the all-pervading grace of God, the more we stand amazed by the love of God.

We have this privileged life as believers: nothing we think is harmful is actually harmful at all, so far as the relational life is concerned.

God wants us empowered by truth and, hence, willing and able to love.

***

We need not be discouraged when we sin. Rather, we are to thank the Holy Spirit for revealing our lack so we might repent and grow.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

Forgiveness When Nothing Else Will Do

“THEY are treating you like family,” the wife said to her jaded husband, a little sick of being taken for granted by his supervisor and manager at work.

And, the fact of the matter, is his wife was never more right.

But how do we reconcile such an outrageous injustice; an assault on our person?

Given that we are assaulted, there must be a corrective — a way for us to live with a vision beyond such hurts. God gives us a way. To reject his way is to reject him. But to wrestle with his way is to wrestle with him, which is blessed. We will surely acquire what we so sorely need!

Forgiveness is the only way; it is the wisdom of God.

There is no other way of reconciling our maddening circumstances of conflict — be they personal, interpersonal or suprapersonal. Let me say it again; there is no other way. And even those of us who are struggling to forgive someone or some situation acknowledge that, in theory at least, we must forgive.

We must forgive for our own good, not least for the other’s good.

Forgiveness when nothing else will do helps us to do what has previously seemed impossible. When we know it as there being no other way, then we are compelled in our motivations to master that which beforehand confounded us.

Forgiveness when nothing else will do is the one and only wisdom of the Lord God.

To agree, finally, that forgiveness is the only thing that will do, whether we like it or not, is the first step in procuring a miracle — to be open to having the capacity to forgive where we have struggled.

We find that when we open up to God, God opens us up.

When we have opened up to God we have surrendered our wisdom for his and we are open to learning. There is so much that God can teach us. But there is nothing we can learn if we hold to our own knowledge.

And hurts have their way of locking us into our feeling and ways of thinking.

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When we open up to God, God opens us up. Surrendering to him is surrendering to his will, and that is surrendering our limited view and range for his voluminous view and copious range.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.