I turned to God long ago in desperation. My entire being shivered at the realization that without God, there was no possible solid ground upon which to build my life. As an agnostic finally searching for God, God found me, literally restoring my life. Later, the first time I read these words of David, I was filled with gratefulness:

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Not only is there little knowledge of God in our land today; there is also much fear. And these two facts are deeply interconnected. The presence of fear indicates an absence of the knowledge of, and faith in, God. There was great fear during the time of the prophet Hosea in the eight century BCE. What he declared about the northern kingdom of Israel rings true today: “There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish (Hosea 4:1b-4).

Just imagine the calming consequences which would come to us if we could only say, with comforted conviction, the following three verses. They are penetrating words of fear-damping faith; they attest to the courage faith bestows, as we risk leaning fully into trust:

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? . . . I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Ps 27:1, 13-14).

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There is no greater gift in prayer than the touch of God. It is both indescribable and undeniable; you know at once that it is God, and that it is strangely familiar. When God touches you, it is from the inside. No one but God can do that. It is always a touch of immeasurable love. Though not a physical touch, it still affects you physically. And also psychically. Like the hymn “He Touched Me” says, God’s touch will heal you and make you whole. Truly, God loves you in your totality, even if you do not.

The wondrous touch of God will bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says includes: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). These all come together in varying degrees, depending on your readiness to accept, embrace, and live out of these fruits.

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As a child, I used to dream of flying on a magic carpet. Little did I understand back then, that prayer can actually become somewhat like a magic carpet, first elevating us and then somehow carrying us to God. And just as amazing as flight to God, as the subtle motion of prayer, is the equally amazing sense that we have not really moved at all, that we have strangely arrived at where we already were, but did not know it. This time, however, we are not alone, as we sense God’s approving presence.

Prayer will slowly reveal to us our unique, private yet shared space with God, already in place from the moment of our birth. It is as if God planned out our entire future, our coming time to be alone with God, at the very instant of our creation. How God can wrap our farthest tomorrow right into our initial beginning of todays, is an unfathomable mystery. But then, so is God, and likely will remain so forever.

Individual prayer will ever remain a private mystical mystery. Such prayer has been called. “The flight of the alone to the Alone.” It is as deeply personal as anything our lives. Thus does Jesus instruct: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).

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Whenever you pray, you enter into what has been called “the cloud of God”, as God’s unseen Spirit silently descends upon you. You secretly enter heaven’s eternal time and space, where you may come to know God directly with your soul, but not with your mind; where you may see God with your heart, but not with your eyes; where you may hear God with your soul, but not with your ears. In that mysterious cloud, you may also join and be joined by all the generations of Christians who have preceded you in the fulfillment of their faith, and who seek to encourage you to fight the good fight all the way to the end, when you will share with them a destiny in heaven.

This renders prayer all the richer with meaning. The truth is, Prayer and worship are going on in heaven and on earth at one and the same time, concurrently. That means we are not alone. The souls of dearly departed family members and friends are spiritually with us, as we are with them. That means our communion with God somehow includes our communion with them. We may sense, but cannot prove this great commonality between the living and the dead, but it is there nevertheless. Our common prayer and worship transcend time and space. We are sharing in a unity to be ours forever in heaven.

The power of these words hit me while offering the final prayer at the funeral of a saintly woman years ago. It was as if the curtain between heaven and earth briefly parted, permitting me to see with my spiritual eyes this woman surrounded by a loving cloud of witnesses. She smiled at me with a joy beyond language.

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Most of us have a problem listening. It seems to be something of a universal issue among humankind. I mean really listening, listening with ear of your heart as well as your head. We readily take in surface stuff; yet to get the deeper message, we have to stop what we are doing, open up, and fully face the other, like flowers opening to the morning sun. Psalm 46:10 puts this very simply: “Be still, and know that I am God!” You have to be still and silent to take in, learn, and know. To do that, you must want to hear the message.

One of the most remarkable verses in the entire Bible is Revelation 3:20. It presents a great summary of what Christ seeks to do, and for us to do in response, all in Christ’s own voice. The resurrected Christ tells the church at Laodicea, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” These are words to take to heart and even memorize. I silently recite them nearly every day. It helps keep me opened to, centered and focused on, Christ.

Some years ago, while I was a pastor teaching a confirmation class, a life-changing event took place for one of the students. It happened while I guided them through a meditation exercise. The theme: what would happen if Jesus knocked at the front door of your home? I had them close their eyes and let their imaginations run free. Then I calmly and softly guided them through the meditation.

Every one of the students reported some kind of an experience of Christ being present in their home. For one young man, however, it was life changing. Robert was nearly in tears as he attempted to describe what had occurred. He said, “I heard Jesus knocking, and when I opened the door, it felt like he was really there! I invited him in, and to my shock, Jesus told me right away that he wanted me to become a pastor!” Years later, Robert did indeed became an ordained United Methodist pastor.

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Among the most comforting words Jesus Christ ever spoke, were those uttered shortly before he was arrested and crucified. During my years as a pastor, I said these words at nearly every funeral I conducted. Thinking of us rather than Himself, Jesus sensitively said:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

I have mostly considered these words as referring to Christ coming to meet us after we pass over to the other side. But I recently suggested to a spiritual woman that she meditate on these words in effort to sense Christ’s presence right now. As I said this, the Spirit informed me that these words also mean, “Christ is coming for you now, so that you and Christ can become one in Spirit in this life; and after that, in the life to come.” That would mean salvation is a now event, inclusive of a vivid sense of a lived connection, an ongoing communion with Christ today carrying us all the way into eternity. The question then becomes: why put off until death entering into this endless relationship Christ offers today? Why not let tomorrow and today join together with Christ, in Christ?

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In varying degrees, we all seek the truth. Though we may at times fear the truth, Jesus says that, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free . . . So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:32,36). The Apostle Paul echoes Christ’s words, when he says, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).

At the heart of Jesus’ mission was his passion to set us free from every manner of bondage, physical, psychic, or spiritual. In his very first message to humanity, delivered to his own people in Nazareth, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2):

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21).

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Prayer is communication with God in all its forms. This includes intimate as well as seemingly distant communication, from monologues to dialogues, from texts to touch, from speech to silent communion. Prayer establishes the bridge between God and humanity. It is as vital to our personal well-being to develop a flourishing prayer life, as it is to learn how to communicate love to human loved ones.

An analogy may be helpful here. There are two sides or hemispheres to the human brain. What connects them, so that they can communicate with each other, and work together for that person to be whole and healthy, is a band of neural fibers called the “corpus callosum.” If this band is damaged or destroyed, that person can no longer function fully as themselves.

To extend the analogy: let the left hemisphere represent our embodied being connected to the physical universe. And let the right hemisphere represent our spiritual being connected to the unseen kingdom of God. That means we have a “joint citizenship” in both this cosmos and heaven. This was already understood by St. Augustine back in the fifth century C E.

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Let the first step on your path to God be that of faith. Take the proverbial leap of faith that by your faith, you have obtained peace and right standing with God through Jesus Christ. Take hold of that faith, and let it take hold of you.

Once that faith is in place, strengthened by the surrounding grace of God, you will be ready to face unshaken, whatever may come in your service to God and love. Paul puts forward what to expect, in one of the most important promise passages in the Bible:

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:1-5).

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