Absence

In recent months, I took a more focused approach to my scriptural input. Here’s my process:

·      Choose the text

·      Read the text, slowly

·      Stop reading when you subjectively experience God’s presence

·      Pause and appreciate God’s presence

·      Reflect (journal?) on the moment

You may recognize this technique for engaging in Bible meditation. What I have found is this is helpful to impose a discipline of slowly considering a text, rather than rushing through it with the notion, “Eh … I know this stuff already.” What I have realized by slowing down is that, nope, I’ve been missing some things.

The other part is in sharpening my spiritual discernment: looking for and recognizing God’s presence both with me and in me. I recognize something about myself: I’m very good at theology and doctrine – the information and knowledge part of Christianity come easier for me than others. But the subjective, the contemplative, the relationship has taken many decades and significant effort to engage. This process helps me in that pursuit – the pursuit of a real relationship with God.

So, all that to say, my devotional Bible time has been focused on discerning God’s presence in the text. But this particular section was not one where I experienced God’s nearness! Here is the text:

“in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Eph. 2:2-3 ESV)

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This was a challenge because it violated the ‘rule:’ where is God’s presence? The answer is: not here! The section is profoundly anti-God. In the contemplative exercise, I became aware of God’s presence because it was absent in this text!