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Discernment in Prayer
from Shalem
Discernment in prayer is really prayer about our prayer. In this discernment we open our prayer to God's gaze, looking with God at God's desire for us, our desire for God and the consonance of our prayer with these desires. The ensuing sensitization to the nuances of this relationship is reflected in our understanding of prayer and our conscious choices regarding prayer. These choices come to be made in the ambiance of desire and tested against a growing at-homeness in God. Our focus shifts from our efforts as prayer to God's prayer in us.
In Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis presents wise and witty guidance in this matter of discernment, using the vehicle of a series of letters from Screwtape, God’s arch-enemy, to Wormwood, Screwtape’s emissary on earth. These letters offer insight into common assumptions about prayer and the implications of these for spiritual formation. Speaking of prayer, Screwtape writes to Wormwood, “The deepest likings and impulses of any person are the raw material, the starting point, with which the enemy (God) has furnished him or her....You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books.”
Often what draws us to another person or an institute for assistance in the spiritual journey is some discontent or dis-ease with our prayer. For some, familiar and dependable methods just aren’t working any more; God isn’t present in the once familiar ways. For others, there’s been a gradual awakening to God which seems to be moving them into unfamiliar terrain; they seek a guide. For still others, prayer may have seemed adequate until they heard someone else speaking about prayer or read a book which described prayer in rather esoteric terms. Since then they have wondered if they have been deluding themselves in what they have understood and practiced.
Yet there also can be a graced edge to this mistrust. Sometimes it disguises God’s gentle invitation beyond our limits to a place of limitless love. We may notice a sense of rightness about what’s going on, though we can’t explain why. There may be a willingness to be without the felt experiences of God that we have come to rely upon, accompanied by an imperceptible movement from the confinement of prayer to a specific time and place to a prayerfulness in all of life. A prayer of deep humility and trust may shape itself in our hearts: “God, I don’t know what’s going on, why things have changed. If it is of you, I want to want it; if you want something different, please let me know what it is. Most of all, just let me be with you.”
When another is able to enter into this prayerful stance with us, then together we might see what one of us was unable to see alone. Perhaps something different is called for; perhaps there is a form that can more authentically express our desire right now; perhaps there is a simple formless presence which might divest us of hidden expectations about prayer. Perhaps a group can help sustain us as we wait on God. In this faithful waiting, mistrust of ourselves gives way to a deepening trust of God’s Spirit at work in us. God’s desire gradually becomes more important than ours.
There are times, however, when the vector of mistrust deflects the heart’s attention. Our gaze shifts from God and a desire for God to a narrow preoccupation with self: “I should know more. I should be able to pray this way. I should be able to by-pass these feelings and settle into prayer. I can’t be myself with God; nothing about myself is quite good enough for prayer.” Thus we look for ways of escaping ourselves under the guise of “worthy” prayer. Typically, then, we try to master prayer, forgetting that it has more to do with our wanting God and God’s wanting us than any skill we might acquire. The shared prayer of others can serve as a reminder that prayer is God’s initiative, that God indeed has already taken that initiative in our hearts and our souls have responded. There may even be some practices which can help us cut through the images of ourselves as praying persons and glimpse that prayer which has long been happening. But if we ever get the idea that the practices are making the prayer happen, Screwtape’s cause is for the moment significantly advanced.
Screwtape’s influence is also greatly augmented by the propensity to move too quickly beyond the simple noticing of the heart’s stirrings, or a new way of experiencing ourselves in relation to God, to an analysis and judgment of the meaning of the experience and a grasping after the appropriate response. We might benefit from assistance in the noticing or in the relaxed attention to God’s leading. When, however, we meet someone too eager to assist in some fixed interpretation or diagnosis of prayer and the inevitable prescription of the ‘right’ next step, there is the danger of reality eluding us. Then Screwtape’s intention is easily accomplished
Screwtape’s intentions are less discernible when we become dissatisfied with prayer. If the dissatisfaction is of God, if God is inviting the soul to a new level of intimacy, or is disengaging the heart from lesser desires, we might experience reluctance, fear, or sadness at the loss of the familiar. At first glance, such responses might readily be attributed to Screwtape. However, closer scrutiny suggests that beneath the heart’s reflexive action in the face of impending disruption beats the steadiness of desire and a willingness to engage in God’s designs. When one is impelled to live in this faithfulness, Screwtape for a time has been exiled. There is, however, another kind of dissatisfaction where the facade of holy fervor blinds us to a covetousness or a kind of spiritual pride. Another’s prayer is always better than ours. We, too, should scale the heights of ecstasy or be drawn into a desert wasteland. Sometimes we are chagrined by the ordinariness of our prayer. At other times we question the wisdom inherent in God’s manner of dealing with us. Screwtape’s laughter echoes in the wings, but it falls on deaf ears. Another person may need to listen for us and confront us with our pseudo-mystical pursuit.
Screwtape encourages Wormwood’s endeavors by reminding him, “You will be helped by the fact that humans themselves do not desire prayer as much as they suppose. There is such a thing as getting more than they bargain for.” However, he balances this with the admonition: “But, of course the Enemy will not meantime be idle. Whenever there is prayer, there is danger of God’s own immediate action.” Here is the grace of it all, the hope for our spiritual lives. We may never clearly discern all the intricacies of our prayer; we may never be able to depend on our desire. But God’s prayer in us is constant, as is God’s love. And in God’s loving prayer our hearts can rest.
Re-published with permission from Shalem
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