Contemplation: to view or consider with continued attention.

Contemplatives dwell on God. I think contemplation is communing, dare I say, having church with yourself. I am always drawn to read books about great Christian contemplatives. They learned how to live in the presence of God. They passed from "Christian Activity" to the higher call to be at home in the heart of God. This doesn't mean they just sat around all day contemplating their navels. It means they finally, through God's grace, were able to put the horse before the cart. They were able to genuinely serve their Lord because they fell in love with him in their prayer closets. Through celebrating him in their ordinary mundane lives, daily persevering through the distraction of self, intellect, vain thinking and religious dogma, they could receive him for who he was, not what he could do for them.

I have slowly come to realize I have often done church with people, but I have rarely done it with myself. I believe that God is requiring this discipline from me but I am avoiding it. I am not anti-communal or saying I should forsake meetings, but how can I share genuine community, when I can barely, on any consistent basis, sit alone quietly for five-ten minutes with Jesus without being distracted by my racing thoughts and vain thinking or sometimes becoming overwhelmingly fearful of confronting the vast chasm between him and me. How can I come together with my brethren offering a hymn or a teaching when I never really received it from the proper source to begin with.....I am just quoting some other person that did the time with God.....isn't that spiritual plagiarism?

Do I despise the meeting of the saints so much that I arrogantly neglect the necessary preparation done before the Holy Spirit on my face so that I may be of some true service to my brothers? I know we are to meet in simplicity with out pretense, but honestly, I have heard some of the most careless insensitive things said in community in the name of Jesus…..and regretfully they have often times come from my own lips.

When we authentically participate in the practice of the presence of Jesus, our lives mysteriously become a message to the world, to our brothers......to ourselves. We have spent so much time in that presence our "right being" instead of “right doing" becomes a well for the thirsty and a voice in the desert. Jesus Christ is so lifted up in our life that he draws men through our extraordinary, ordinary life. As it is, I am an expert in practicing the presence of me and the Christian imposter I have settled for.

My true battles are not with sin and suffering but with the self which tells me the cares of material life and Christian activity are priority... that I need to answer this special call on my life ……. I have NO special work to do; I have no special call!! The only call on my life is to Jesus Christ alone and total devotion to him. How many times have I left him hungry and thirsty right under my nose when I have been off doing the things that I thought were Christian? Why do I continue to jump on every spiritual/ideological bandwagon when Jesus is left standing alone at the altar in the tabernacle of my heart? He has something to say that is bread for me everyday ( Isaiah 30:15) but I will have no part of it. I continue to seek out those who would fill my cup. This is why I must stop. I must return to his temple and meet with him, persevere with him in the hard things he will say to me and melt in the pure love that I will find there. I must go to him before I go to my brothers or the world. I must seek him in his temple.

Lord Jesus, may I truly come to know what it means to love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength.