I came to understand that God wanted passionately to speak to me one-on-one, personally and directly, and to address my concerns and answer my questions far more than I had ever wanted or could ever want to speak to Him, to ask Him questions, to present my concerns to Him and to hear Him answer!

In the face of my gut-wrenching disappointments with the two pastors, my thoughts now turned to the people with whom I had connected so happily and easily over the last two years, the sisters at St. Benedict’s Monastery. 

Their genuine connection to the Lord, demonstrated so effortlessly in their daily life and relationships, had impacted me deeply.

I knew that this connection had to come from somewhere, something or Someone.

At this point, I knew nothing whatever about Christian spiritual guidance or, as it is also called, spiritual ‘direction’; or even that it was a service offered by some of the staff at the Monastery’s Education Centre.

I knew only that the Monastery could offer the special kind of spiritual ‘space’ and the deep silence that I knew I needed.

I would learn subsequently that the reverse was, and is, profoundly true: in this silence also, the Lord would have the best possible chance of finding me!

When we learn to enter into silence with God, we allow Him the chance of finding us —both in the good and the bad times of our life.

In this silence, I would also learn that the God who seemed to have disappeared off my radar had, in fact, been searching for me much longer and far more passionately than I had been —or ever could be —searching for Him!

God, I learned, is always the one who pursues you and me; not the other way round! 

Your only task is to let Him find you!

This would prove to be one of the key revelations God gave me in my second conversion. It is a truth that, thirty-four years later, still continues to guide my own ongoing conversion.

It is a truth that I now pass on to you with great joy!

God, I learned, is always the one who pursues
you; not the other way round!
Your only task is to let Him find you!

Above all, I would learn that there was a specific, simple but highly effective way of re-connecting to God when you seem to have ‘lost’ Him, a way that always gets results.

There was a guaranteed way of allowing God to find me.

I learned that this way of connecting deeply to Him is, for very good reason, often known as prayer of the heart.

In the course of learning this simple way of prayer,  and of experiencing its quiet, no-fanfare, but unbelievably powerful impact, I learned a very great deal about the vital importance of the human heart to the Lord.

Very importantly, I came to understand that for Jesus and the Father, the word ‘heart’ means far more than what you and I usually think of as ‘heart’, namely merely our human emotions.

Rather, for the Father and Jesus, your human ‘heart’ refers to the whole and entire human person that you are. 

It refers to every single aspect of your human make-up: namely, your

• will
• psyche
• emotions
• conscience
• decision-making
• words
• actions
• thoughts 

As far as the Lord is concerned, NO PART of the person you are stands outside His definition of ‘heart’.

In His eyes, EVERY aspect of the person you are —body, mind, and spirit, in addition to all your human faculties I’ve already listed above —qualifies as ‘heart’. 

I came to understand clearly why Jesus has designed your heart and mine to be the part of our humanity that matters most profoundly to Him. 

I came to understand that God will go to any length in order to bring your heart and mine closer to Himself. 

This way of prayer requires silence —both inner and outer.

In order to be silent within yourself, before you start your prayer you make the conscious decision to let go of words and thoughts, relying instead on your heart, the deepest core of your being, the whole person that you are, to communicate with God and to allow God to communicate with you.

In order to ensure outer silence, you go to a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.

Then you simply allow yourself to rest in God’s Presence. 

There is nothing that you have to say or think!

Instead, you have to let go of words and thoughts.

And once in God’s presence, you do not have to make any effort to open yourself to His love.

You see, as day follows night, when you are in the Lord’s presence, you automatically open yourself to His love!

It is perfectly impossible to be in God’s presence without also being enfolded in, and protected by, His love. 

Let my own daily, personal experience of walking with God over thirty-nine years reassure you that the words of Jesus’ disciple, John, are completely true:

God is love
1 John 4:8

It’s really true!

God TRULY is LOVE!

Furthermore, there are never any conditions that you have to meet before God begins to bathe you in His love! 

I implore you to let this vitally important fact sink in.

Note

You don’t experience the Lord’s love primarily at the level of your human emotions.

We humans are accustomed to associating love primarily with our superficial emotions.

But your interchange with God happens at a level that is far deeper than simply your human emotions.

Accepting and understanding this requires a small step of faith on your part, at least to begin with. But then anything worthwhile in your life requires a small bit of faith when you start out.

(Think of when you taught your first class, delivered your first baby, examined your first medical patient.) 

The Lord accepts your little faith offering and then He takes full charge. 

He takes full responsibility for you. 

You’re now in His loving, faithful, totally dependable, hands!

He takes over the business of loving you and healing you! 

As you continue to approach Him in this ‘heart’ way regularly (that is, a few minutes each day),  you WILL GRADUALLY COME TO KNOW at a deeper and deeper level of your being that God loves you profoundly and without conditions!

You will soon come to know at a deeper and deeper level of your being that God LOVES you profoundly and without conditions!

As God would soon show me, there is very good reason why you and I do well to let go of the usual words and thoughts that we are so accustomed to relying on when we pray.

You see, letting go of words and thoughts frees up your heart, namely —

• your will
• your psyche
• your emotions
• your conscience
• your decision-making
• your words
• your actions
• your thoughts

—from the inner noise, mental clutter, emotional baggage and ongoing anxieties that constantly weigh it down and can prevent God from getting through to it!

By deliberately choosing to let go of words and thoughts, you release some of this clutter.

You now give God a chance to penetrate through to the real person who lives underneath your often-impenetrable clutter of words and thoughts! 

You suddenly put yourself in a position where you become far more available to God. 

You create a space inside your innermost being where God can live FAR more fully in you and can therefore also love and heal you far more fully. 

You are now much freer to RECEIVE all that He wants to tell you and give you. 

You see, we ALL carry around clutter inside us , which puts up needless barriers to God getting through to us as fully as He, and we, might wish or need.

When you restrict your prayer time with God to the use of many words, you activate your inner mental dialogue so that it continues to run ceaselessly.

Your ‘thinking’ intellect, therefore, takes over at the expense of your heart, the part of you that matters most to God.

You are not able be fully present to Him and ‘hear’ Him in the way He wants you to hear Him and in the way you want/need to hear Him.

I hope you’re starting to see that when you and I do most or all of the thinking and talking, and virtually none of the listening, to God, we unintentionally risk tying God’s beautiful hands!

In my second conversion, I learned that deliberately choosing to detach from words and thoughts and, instead, encountering God with and from my whole self, my heart, was the solution to my pain and apparent separation from the Lord. 

This was the missing piece, the critical ‘how-to’, that the two pastors from whom I’d sought help had apparently not known about.

This was the priceless piece of knowledge and guidance that I had needed so urgently and that both pastors had been completely unable to provide.

As I began with the expert help of my new guide to practice regularly this way of praying, I came to understand something else:

I came to understand that God wanted passionately to speak to me one-on-one, personally and directly, and to address my concerns and answer my questions, far more than I had ever wanted or could ever want to speak to Him, to ask Him questions, to present my concerns to Him and to hear Him answer! 

God wanted to engage me in conversation far, far more than I had ever wanted to speak to Him and to be spoken to by Him!

I discovered that all lasting Christian conversion absolutely requires the ability to have a genuine, easy, free-flowing, two-way conversation with the Lord!

Without a genuine, 2-way, free-flowing conversation, any relationship will die.

I learned that this is why Jesus constantly insists that we learn to hear, really hear, His voice; and why He taught me that we can do so only with our whole person: that is, our heart!

I would discover that this truth is borne out time and again in both the Old and New Testaments. God tells us that the ability to hear the His Voice —day and night, in season and out of season —is the constant and absolute requirement for anyone who wants to follow Him!

I learned that without a genuine, free-flowing, intimate, two-way conversation with the Lord, prayer becomes meaningless and stultifying.

In fact, this discovery would become another foundational, life-changing truth of my second conversion.

I learned that this is why Jesus constantly insists that we learn to hear, really hear, His voice; and why He taught me that we can do so only with our whole person: that is, our heart!