A Sturdy Center

There is great potential in your life right now, in your neighbor’s life, and in mine too. Whether things are sweet or bitter, we know God is ready to work for our good. The trick is that we have to show up in order to receive the good He wants to work. Whatever the Lord may be doing in our lives, He’s doing it in the place where “Another lives in me.” To have what we need to cooperate with Him, we need to be in that place within ourselves where His Spirit is. I think of it like old-fashioned milking stool — a sturdy spot where I can, as Tommy Briggs would say, “set down inside myself.” Three legs brace this abiding place, and when I get wobbly I check on these practices:

1. Practicing God’s presence —

Am I nudging my attention toward my Helper throughout the day, or doing my own thing? Am I thanking and praising Him as I go?

2. Daily listening prayer — 

Am I sharing my heart as I actually am right now, and taking time to receive what He wants to impart?

3. Confessional community — 

Do my people know where I am and what I’m working through? Am I exposing my sin and vulnerability so they can stand with me in receiving God’s mercy and aid?

These aren’t moralistic “shoulds,” but fundamental human needs, like drinking water and getting to bed at a reasonable time. When we recognize them as needs, this does much to show us the way forward. Rather than making these behaviors a burden of Christian performance, we can ask our Father for daily bread. Know this:  it is His desire to open the way and provide every resource it will take to make your abiding place steady and strong. I’ll challenge you to begin by humbly owning these needs – confess to the Lord that He created you to see Him, to receive His Word, and to be a known and cherished member of His Body without shame. Once we remember He created us for this glorious destiny, and that these are the actions of a fully-alive human person created in His image, we’re better able to trust that He is invested in bringing us there. This clarity enables us to take the next step:  asking Him to meet these needs. 

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). 

God is steadfastly, tenaciously committed to the becoming of every person He has created. It kindles our trust, hope, and courage to remember that He has both the will and the power to accomplish our spiritual flourishing, in every season and circumstance. From this view of His character, we can simply ask for what we need, whatever that may be – “Catch my attention with Your presence while I’m at work today.” “Show me the right window in my day for listening prayer.” “Direct me to the men in my church I can invite to form a prayer group.”

From this foundation of trusting dependence, we can collaborate with God in seeing our needs met. The discipline of practicing God’s presence really does require practice, which means it takes kindness with ourselves, and persistence. It can be challenging to find time and establish a functional daily rhythm for listening prayer. Developing genuine spiritual friendship with a prayer partner and small group may seem like it will require a bona fide miracle. No doubt, building these practices into the structure of our lives is an ongoing project that needs refreshing as we grow and as seasons change. It could be that you find yourself quite unable to consistently do any of these things right now. Wherever you are in relation to these practices, it is a perfectly acceptable starting place. The Good Shepherd is coming for you, because you are an infinitely valued and irreplaceable member of His flock. You are reachable by God’s mercy where you are right now. 

The Enemy wants us to feel shame for being needy, when in reality knowing that we need, and knowing what we need, are hallmarks of maturity. I find it impressively elegant that any one of us seeking help with these practices ends up making the Church more what she’s meant to be. Have you thought about that? When you cry out to Him for prayer partners, you are throwing your personal energy into His will being done here on earth. You are directly seeking the answer of Jesus’s high priestly prayer, 

“I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).

When you ask and knock, invite and reach out, perhaps most potently when you do so out of desperate need, God moves to call others forward, to know their corresponding need, and grow in their capacity to be His Body together with you. I rejoice over the ways you are agitating for what it takes to steadily abide in Jesus, because the more you do, the more radiant His Body becomes.