We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by “how we feel.” A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable than one that is easy, happy, enlightened and apparently a big success.
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer
These are wise words for us to remember.
Some of my silent sits go quickly. The spaces between my thoughts are few.
Other sits feel much longer in length. They seem to never end. I think about upcoming tasks. I ruminate on past decisions that I could have handled differently.
God is much wiser than me. God needs but a brief moment to act deep, deep, within my soul. Despite how I feel the sit went, God has still acted.
God’s actions will later be revealed during the non-silent times of my day. My job is to trust God and show up for these silent sits.
It refreshes me to know that I can never fail at centering prayer. God loves me and that is it!
Rich Lewis has been a daily practitioner of centering prayer since June 1, 2014. He teaches centering prayer in his local community at churches, colleges and universities.
Rich’s website, Silence Teaches Us Who We Are, is devoted to centering prayer. Rich especially recommends these pages on his site.
Rich’s resource page: http://silenceteaches.com/resources/
Rich’s centering prayer page: http://silenceteaches.com/centering-prayer/
