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By Rob Des Cotes
DESERT hermit Carlo Carretto says the Bible is a book
which marries heaven and earth.
In Joyful Exiles, James Houston similarly says the scriptures
“constitute the ladder of communication between earth and heaven, on
which there constantly ascend and descend the heavenly messengers sent out
to help lift up our hearts and minds to God.”
It would seem the word of God is a very active
environment. But for most of us, our hearts are not always as open to the
same expectations as our theology might be. We easily lose the connection
between heaven and earth that scripture promises us, and our enthusiasm for
the Bible can wax and wane.
There is a particular way that people who begin to
discover God through contemplative prayer experience this waning, as the
Lord changes their relationship to reading the scriptures. At first, this
reorientation can be quite disconcerting as we begin to notice a weariness
– or even an aversion – come over us with regard to scripture
reading.
It is not uncommon, for instance, to hear someone in
spiritual direction say, “I used to read three chapters of the Bible
faithfully each day, and now I don’t even feel like opening it.
What’s happening to my faith?”
As we grow in a more direct intimacy with God through
contemplative prayer, we should not be surprised that this will imply a new
relationship to other aspects of our faith to worship, to the church, to
our understanding of evangelism and mission, and to the way we approach
scripture reading. In light of the new reality of God’s
active presence that such prayer introduces us to, the Holy Spirit will
likely call us to reexamine many other aspects of our faith as well.
Correctives often need to be applied to years of
self-directed spirituality – and to all our well-meant efforts, which
might not have had their origins in the Spirit’s promptings.
The order gets turned around as we recognize, more and
more, that God alone is the “author and finisher of our faith.”
As a necessary part of our maturing process, the Lord
weans us from our self-directed ways, often by first taking away the
satisfaction that we used to feel according to the presumptions of our old
approach. He does so in order to lead us toward a more received
relationship, one that is closer to truth than the perception that we, in
any way, apprehend God through our own initiatives. This more profound
integrity then brings a much deeper satisfaction to the soul, and to the
Lord.
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As it applies to scripture, a contemplative
re-orientation will invite us to a more Spirit-related form of reading
– one whose objective is not primarily understanding, but communion
with God. This shift in purpose might require us to read more slowly,
perhaps going over a passage or verse a few times rather than simply
skimming over it with our mind.
As we feel our way through a passage, we will detect
signs of God’s presence within us that confirm his active presence in
his word.
Recognizing the living nature of God’s word
represents a different form of knowledge that ultimately transforms the act
of reading into yet one more place of intimate communion with our Lord. We
will discover the same presence of God that we have come to know through
prayer, now revealed afresh through the Spirit-accompanied reading of
scripture.
The living word of God will penetrate us deeply,
creating a clearer distinction between the initiatives of our own spirit,
and those of the Lord’s active presence in our soul.
Rob Des Cotes is a spiritual director and pastor of
Fairview Baptist Church in Vancouver.
November 2008
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