Where's Your Center?

Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him. John 14:23

Ah, my favorite activity, assisting Stephen with a big science review for a major test at school. Rates up there with my annual physical. Anyway, during the review, we come across Nicolaus Copernicus, who developed the theory of heliocentrism, simply put, he figured out that the sun was the center of the solar system not the earth. Before his theory in 1514, the bright folks on earth were geocentric thinkers, that is, the earth was the center of the universe. Sometimes I wonder...has our thinking changed all that much?

I find myself bogged down in the mundane activities of life more times than not, and this sticky mud actually causes me to become geocentric in my thinking; "How can I extricate myself from this mess without tracking it around the clean kitchen floor? And then, I call on my Heavenly Father to get out the spiritual life jacket once again and throw me a life line.

So this sounds like a bad thing. Not really. It is what Richard Foster in his book Prayer identifies as simple prayer, the most common kind of praying we do. Think about it; we are coming to Someone who can help! It is encouraging to remember, Christ himself encouraged us to pray for our needs in what we refer to as "The Lord’s Prayer.

I like these words from Foster:

Share your hurts, share your sorrows, share your joys–freely and openly. God listens in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. When we do this we will discover something of inestimable value. We will discover that by praying we learn to pray.

At some point along the way, I wanted more in my dialogue with God than just asking and pleading. It is the relationship I desire, a contemplative understanding of His great love and grace, and to grow in that knowledge. I have a long way to go, but what is so encouraging about our walk with Christ, as Paul says, "not that I have laid hold of it yet, but I press on..." (Phil 3)

This is what Foster calls the Copernican revolution of the heart, the move away from the me centered, geocentric prayer life to a God centered existence:

In the beginning we are indeed the subject and the center of our prayers. But in God’s time and in God’s way a Copernican revolution takes place in our heart. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, there is a shift in our center of gravity. We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization that we are part of His. Wondrously and mysteriously God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center. A conversion of the heart takes place, a transformation of the spirit.

It is that relationship I desire, a continual need to know Him personally, to glorify Him in His lovingkindness. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still come to Him with my petitions, it is wired in us to call out to Him in times of need. But having the times where He makes His abode in me…

I have found such comfort in the scripture from John 14:23, especially the word "abode". It speaks of a home, not a house. A kitchen with the teapot whistling, old Earl Grey awaiting, a blackberry cobbler in the oven, anticipating the soft vanilla ice cream. An abode: the warm fireplace on a cold gray day, my buckskin wool slippers on my feet and my dog at my feet. Knowing my son is nearby chatting with some chick on his phone, and my wife is opening the oven door…

I ask myself constantly, "where’s your center, who’s your center?" Life is so much better when old Copernicus comes to mind and the fulcrum of my existence doesn't revolve around me. I am opening my eyes to the great discovery, "for Thou art the Lord Most High over all the earth." (Ps 97:9)













A friend of mine introduced me to the word "cornballish". OK, this pic probably fits in that category, but still...looks pretty inviting, now doesn't it?

Mark

Prov 17:22