The Jesus Prayer

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we talked about the importance of spending time in prayer, which can sometimes feel very pressured and guilt-ridden in our busy lives. But God’s desire for us in teaching us to spend time in prayer is not for us to be overwhelmed with the guilt of failing but for us to be overwhelmed by the presence of God with us in every moment of the day.

It is very important to spend time in quiet with prayer. But when we do that, we are soaking in the presence and power of Jesus so that we take it everywhere with us.

The Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity has a concept called theosis, which means “assimilating the presence of God” – like “a cloth soaks up water by osmosis, we are saturated with God...” when we pray, as the Eastern Orthodox author, Frederica Mathews-Green says. In her book, The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God, she comments that “this indwelling presence heals, restores, and completes us, preparing each of us to take up the role in his kingdom that we alone can fill.”

And she describes this process of allowing Jesus to take over our lives – as a “gift of God, not won by any effort.” But, we can make ourselves available to receive it when we we practice spiritual disciplines like prayer – like praying the Lord’s prayer or the ‘Jesus Prayer’ that she discusses.

She says, “The purpose of this earthly life is to be saturated with the life of Christ.”

That is our deepest need, and we need to be disciplined about seeking to fill it because it changes the way we encounter the world. We become more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, good, faithful, gentle, and more full of self-control – more full of the gifts of the spirit and more able to accept those gifts from others.

Mathewes-Green does ask the practical question, though – “how can you think about the words of the Prayer all the time, when there are so many other things you have to think about? In the same way that you can have a meal, go on a trip, or visit a museum with a friend. You could do all of those things alone, but if you take a friend with you.... You may even get more out of it because your friend’s presence heightens your awareness, and you see things through his eyes as well. When you see everything alongside that best of friends, Jesus Christ, your encounters with the world and everyone and everything in it are transformed.”

This is the gift of Jesus. Our Easter basket. Filled with the kind of gift that doesn’t just make our lives sweet and sugary but makes our lives full of the love of God for us and for others.

In the passage from Luke 11 that we’ve looked at this week, we do read all those familiar lines about “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” And we find at the end of the passage that God does provide for us and fill our earthly needs, but through the movement of the Holy Spirit in us – in our community. The passage says, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

God promises to fill our greatest need – the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The need to be filled with the presence of Jesus.

As we think back again on our needs and desires this week – do you want God to fill this need in you? Do you want to be like and be filled with Jesus? If so, perhaps spend some time in prayer this weekend, asking God to fill that particular need.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Try praying the Jesus Prayer over and over, opening yourself to the Spirit, power, and compassion of God:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.