1. Never be tempted to judge the quality of your time spent in God’s Presence by your feelings!

There is no success or failure in this or any other form of prayer.

It’s always and only about a relationship.

You’re interacting with a beloved Person, the One who

• LOVES you just as you are
• never judges or condemns you
• always wants you to enjoy the best health of mind, body, and spirit
• wants you to maintain a deep inner peace and joy
• You’re not taking an exam or attending a job interview!

What the Lord is doing in you is taking place at a level of your being that is far deeper than merely your superficial feelings and emotions.

The Lord is dealing with every aspect of who you are, the deepest, most central, most authentic part of you, the part of you that matters to Him —your heart! 

 

2. The period of 5 to 20 minutes that you spend in God’s Presence is an exercise in learning to detach from (NOT fight!) your thoughts i. e. learning to let them come and let them go.

Why is this necessary?

Because you can’t think your way to God in this form of prayer.

Rather, in the stillness, you simply allow yourself to be present to Him.

So …don’t be tempted to dwell even on ‘interesting’ or ‘exciting’ or ‘spiritual’ thoughts that come to you —no matter how much they seem to be ‘light-bulb’ or ‘aha’ moments.

If the Spirit wishes to take you back to an ‘interesting’ or ‘exciting’ or ‘spiritual’ thought or ‘light-bulb’ moment that presented itself to you, He will bring this back to you outside the time of silent prayer —perhaps when you’re washing the dishes or cleaning your car or building your garden shed or driving to work, or preparing for your next day at the office, or preparing a lecture for your medical students, or arranging a meeting with your boss, or singing to your baby or grandbaby.

Leave this to Him!

Your only role is to detach from all thinking; so that your heart, your inner woman, can be freed up from the usual clutter weighing it down and become more fully present to the Lord!

This is the way in which the Lord invites you to come closer to Himself.

This is the close, deep, more ‘real’, more meaningful and more personally-satisfying connection to the Lord that you have been searching for.

Remember…

• Your thoughts won’t go to waste.

They are the Lord’s responsibility.

He will use your thoughts, feelings, and images in the way and at the time that He knows will benefit you best

• Your role is to learn to let go of thoughts and words

• To get the best results, spend regular time in God’s Presence i. e. 5 -10 - 20 minutes each day

 

3. Outside the time of prayer in God’s Presence, it is very important to acknowledge your feelings, both good and bad.

You do this after you’ve finished your time in God’s presence by jotting them down VERY BRIEFLY in your journal (see # 4).

God wants to put you in touch with your feelings, good and bad.

This is how He begins to heal your emotions. 

 

4. I highly recommend that you keep a very informal prayer journal.

Journaling helps you anchor your feelings and emotions.

This is why it’s important to jot them down in your journal as soon as you’ve finished your time in God’s presence.

As time goes by, you will gradually be able to see for yourself how the Lord is healing your negative emotions, bit by small bit.

 

Note:

Journaling after silent prayer is NOT analysis.

It’s not like writing a school paper.

Instead, let it come from your HEART and GUT.

Never ‘think’ it out!

Keep it brief: 3-4 short sentences or even 3-4 words are more than enough to record one insight or emotion.

If you go beyond this you are getting into analysis.

Please don’t do this!

It entirely defeats the purpose of praying with and from your heart!  

 

5. It is especially important to pay attention to any points of resistance to what the Lord seems to want to bring to your attention.

Stay with this for a while.

You might well uncover barriers to the Lord that you are not aware of.

Don’t run from this.

 

6. Remember, the Lord ALWAYS has your best interests at heart.

 

7. He deals with you extremely gently.

     He never gives you more than you can handle.

 

8. Do Not Fight your Thoughts!

Thoughts will continue to bombard you.

Try to let them go.

Letting go of thoughts is not the same as blocking them out.

Don’t try to block them out. Don’t try to fight them.

You’ll never win!

No one can ever empty their mind (although some folk claim that you can).

Just learn to let the thoughts go.

It is possible to learn to let them go, to let them drift by.

How is this possible?

By returning to the sacred word that you have chosen.

Returning to the sacred word is a way of reminding yourself of your one, overriding intention: namely, to be fully present to God.

Just for these very few minutes of your life each day, try to leave your thoughts with Him!

The Lord is more than capable of taking responsibility for them and using them to your benefit!

 

9. There is no such thing as ‘failure’ or ‘success’ in prayer of any kind, including this form of prayer.

The mere fact that you have put a few minutes aside to be present to God and allow Him to be present to you is itself a prayer.

The Lord deeply honours and respects the few minutes you’ve put aside to spend with Him.

This is what makes the Lord’s heart sing!

Never, therefore, fall to the temptation of judging your prayer period as good, or bad, or indifferent, a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’.

You need simply to stay with the business of learning to detach gently from the thoughts that inevitably come by returning very gently to your sacred word.

 

10. The Lord uses your time spent in His Presence praying with and from your heart to gently dismantle your ‘old’, ‘false’ self!

Remember, this is the self that limits you and that so often gets in the way of your relationship with God. 

This false self holds to an inaccurate image of God, which, in turn, negatively affects the way you see and relate not just to the Lord, but with yourself and others.

It compromises your ability to love and be loved.

As a result, it also reduces your inner peace and joy.

 

Note:

The Lord never condemns your false self.

But He loves you far too much to let it continue to affect your life and relationships negatively.

His goal therefore is ALWAYS to help you HEAL it!

 

11. When you allow the Lord to dismantle your false self in this way of prayer, you start to see Him, yourself and others in the same way God sees YOU — i. e. with the eyes of UNCONDITIONAL, NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED LOVE.

You’ll be able to accept yourself just as you are, warts and all —rather than as you think you ‘should’ be!

 

12. Praying with and from with your heart is an exercise in discovering how to allow the Spirit complete freedom.

And when you discover how to allow the Spirit complete freedom, you also free yourself!

You are not necessarily aware of this process as it takes place.

It’s only on starting to look back, or when others begin to comment on the changes for the better in you, that you start to appreciate how profoundly the Lord is helping you move forward with Him!

As you continue on your journey, hand in hand with the Lord himself for a few minutes each day, you gradually —but with great certainty and clarity —come to understand the Apostle Paul’s words:

…it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

Galatians 2:20 NKJV

 

You have deliberately chosen to

• • let go of words and thoughts
  • stop doing all the talking
  • discover instead how to be more fully present to God
  • open up the whole of yourself (your ‘heart’) to Him
  • ‘listen’ to Him with the ears of your ‘heart’, the most effective way of listening to the Lord
  • soak in His healing LOVE and REST (PEACE)
  • be transformed into the ‘new’ woman the Lord has always destined you to be

13. You’ll find that when you have ended your time in the Lord’s presence, you are often unable to put into any logical words what has gone on inside your spirit.

Don’t panic.

This is as it should be.

What has taken place is a mystery so deep that it cannot be put into words.

It goes far beyond that. 

Little by little, mostly without your realizing it at first, God is transforming you where it matters most, where lasting healing takes place —at your deepest ‘root’ level, the level of your heart!

Mere words can never adequately describe that.

So be content to jot down in your journal just a few brief words or phrases that emerge from you GUT, not your thinking mind. This is all you need.

 

 

Scroll down for your Prayer of the Heart Infographic

This shows what happens when you discover how to pray with your heart. You go from ‘monkey-mind’ to silence to mutual presence.

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer of the Heart Infographic