I was listening to an interview with Eugene Peterson tonight. He was talking about prayer and Sabbath, and the importance of ‘not doing’.
He began by saying that “The obvious thing we do as a Christian community is worship together and that’s a time when, as a lay person, you don’t ‘do’ anything… and ‘not doing’ has a rhythm … that starts to affect the way your body works, your mind works, and your spirit works.” Ideally, when we gather as a church body, I would agree that that is a good time to just stop and rest and listen and just hear what God is saying to us as a group of people. I suppose sometimes we can still be too busy, at church, to really succeed at this, though.
He then went on to say (and I had to replay this a couple of times to really get what he was saying) “Nothing happens when you pray, you THINK (i.e. it seems that way). There’s nothing in prayer that gives you any satisfaction in terms of having accomplished anything. So, learning to pray is learning to ‘not do’ in the awareness that God IS doing something and you don’t know what it is at THAT moment.”
That’s why praying is hard. It feels like I’m not doing anything. And more often than not, it feels more comfortable doing – serving, solving, fixing, etc. It’s hard to ‘not do’.
He really said and explained so much more, so if you are interested, here is the interview with Eugene Peterson (author of the MESSAGE Bible) : http://www.qideas.org/practices/live/showing.aspx
We (hubby and me) have been the brunt of others neediing to learn what it means to be human 'beings' and not human 'doings'. Not sure those who need to learn it did in fact do so but it certainly has made us even more aware of how many people in church circles get their identity from what they do in and for the church rather than from Christ himself.
ReplyDeleteHope this makes sense - its hard to explain in just a few sentences:) . . . and no, I haven't listened to Eugene yet:) but thanks for the link.
To "be still and know that He is God" is one of those amazing invitations to do so very little, which accomplishes so very much.
ReplyDeleteI loved E. Peterson's message, Aneta, and loved listening to a man who devoted much of his life to making God's word relevant today.
That's interesting because most of the time when I'm praying I actually feel the complete opposite.
ReplyDeletemmmm hmmmm.
ReplyDelete....coming from a person who is definitely a do-er. I love to be busy in the church. But after my little burn out a few years back and learning how to observe a sabbath rest and rely on God in prayer (still learning!) I totally get what he is saying.
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