Recently, I picked up (again) Timothy Keller’s book on Prayer. Admittedly: it is the best of Keller I have read, though I have not read the entirety of his work. If you’re interested, the full title is – “Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God.”
As I read, I take notes. Most people do. Some people take studious notes, others draw pictures in the margins for symbolic reference. Me? I write down the insights I gain as I read and then try to paraphrase those in a little notebook that I keep beside my chair. In what follows are the insights/observations that I’ve gleaned. I’ll include page numbers, and will probably make this a rolling series of posts until I finish the book. Here we go!
In his introduction, Keller talks about why he wrote a book on prayer. Over the next few pages he gets to a section titled “Through Duty to Delight.” (p.5) He says “…prayer is both conversation and encounter with God.” A bit further down: “Prayer, then, is both awe and intimacy, struggle and reality.” He’s clear, and it initially takes the pressure off: prayer is duty and delight. I like this because it is a reminder that prayer is difficult, intimidating perhaps, but also fulfilling. It takes work, but brings joy.
Moving ahead, we jump to Chapter 1, which he calls the “Necessity of Prayer.” He spends some time discussing Flannery O’Connor and her work, titled: “A Prayer Journal .” Keller uses the prayer journal entries of O’Connor as he develops his own thoughts, and they are wonderfully incisive and transparent. O’Connor herself wrote,
“Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon…what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know You God because I am in the way.”
Keller’s summary of this point is excellent. He says, “Here O’Connor recognizes what Augustine saw clearly in his own prayer journal, the Confessions–that living well depended on the reordering of our loves. To love our success more than God and our neighbor hardens the heart, making us less able to feel and to sense.” (p. 11) My heart cries yes to this point, namely because it’s a cry of agreement, a cry, as a former pastor of mine used to say, of – “amen or oh me!!” Yes, this is so right to have a love ordered upon God, and “oh me” that my heart is ordered on myself. No wonder prayer is so hard: I keep seeing myself when I close my eyes, and I am always in the way. Indeed: through duty to delight, as Keller has said!
Moving on, a little more O’Connor/Keller mix. As Keller notes, O’Connor began her prayer journal, and O’Connor herself believed that in doing this, she had very much started a new thing in her life. To let her tell it –
“I have started on a new phase of my spiritual life . . . the throwing off of certain adolescent habits and habits of mind. It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming. I see my ridiculous self by degrees.”
Oomph, what a quote! I may need to write that in my Bible, frame it in my house, engrave it into my mirror, do something to remember it!! A beautiful and succinct way that helps me see and feel my prayer life, especially when I feel helpless, defeated, as if all I can see is myself. Keller interacts with O’Connor to further the point. He says, “O’Connor learned that prayer is not simply the solitary exploration of your own subjectivity. You are with Another, and he is unique. God is the only person from whom you can hide nothing. Before him you will unavoidably come to see yourself in a new, unique light. Prayer, therefore, leads to a self-knowledge that is impossible to achieve any other way.” (p. 12) No wonder it’s hard!! As I take it: prayer in many ways is one learning to confront and get over oneself so that he/she can focus on God himself. It is a duty to confront yourself, and a joy to get God.
One last thing for today, which will finish up with Ch. 1. Keller makes the point that as he decided to study prayer, and to engage in prayer more meaningfully, he consulted both modern and older writers/theologians. One theologian he consulted was John Murray. Murray said,
“It is necessary for us to recognize that there is an intelligent mysticism in the life of faith . . . of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer . . . He communes with his people and his people commune with him in conscious reciprocal love . . . The life of true faith cannot be that of cold metallic assent. It must have the passion and warmth of love and communion because communion with God is the crown and apex of true religion.”
What boldly stands out from Murray’s quote is what he calls “an intelligent mysticism.” Indeed: Keller himself picks up on the point, and goes a bit further with it. He says, “One phrase of Murray’s resonated particularly, that we were called to an intelligent mysticism. That means an encounter with God that involves not only the affections of the heart but also the convictions of the mind. We are not called to choose between a Christian life based on truth and doctrine or a life filled with spiritual power and experience. They go together. I was not being called to leave behind my theology and launch out to look for ‘something more,’ for experience. Rather, I was meant to ask the Holy Spirit to help me experience my theology.” (pp. 16-17)
I love that last line, that the Spirit helps me in experiencing my theology. I think the divide here is between the head and the heart, and that prayer is a relation (relationship?) between the two. A great thing to think upon, that the Holy Spirit might take what I know from the Bible and help me to see it applied to my heart, so that I can move through myself, as O’Connor might have it, and find the face of God, where there is joy and delight.
As we finish this post, there is one final quote by Keller which I think best summarizes his points, as well as my overall takeaway.
“Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change-the reordering of our loves. Prayer is how God gives us so many of the unimaginable things he has for us. Indeed, prayer makes it safe for God to give us many of the things we most desire. It is the way we know God, they way we finally treat God as God. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life.” (p. 18)
Dear God, help me to pray…
Resources
Listed below are the resources I quote in this entry. In order:
- Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014).
- Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, 2013).
- (John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955)
Evangelosophy 