This morning as I was praying, in my head I heard the music and the words of the praise song, “As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul panteth after Thee. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship Thee.” The composer of those lyrics was apparently inspired by Psalms 42:1. And so it happens that as we make space to come into the very healing presence of Jesus in contemplative prayer that we discover who we really are. In the quietness of that space, our identities become posited in the true self God created us to walk in. We no longer must wear the many faces of the false self we have accumulated from walking in a broken fallen world bent in opposition against knowing God. It is possible to know about God without really knowing God.

Contemplative prayer for me is a making space to shut out the noise of the world to begin my day with a conscious awareness of entering into a quiet intimacy with God that permeates my day. That intimacy creates an awareness of God’s presence in my day. It has opened up and changed how I look at a lot of things in the course of my days. For instance what I used to consider interruptions or intrusions into my plans, now more frequently become a collaborative effort of recognizing God may have ordered my day very differently from my planned selfish agenda.

A few years ago when I was recovering from a spinal fusion surgery, part of my lengthy recovery and rehabilitation involved long walks. Those walks became my dates with God to observe and absorb His presence in nature. Sometimes while walking I would listen to inspirational cassette tapes. On one particular walk, I remember listening to a recording of the following story by the Franciscan priest Albert Haase:

"Prayer and the contemplative life simply consists of becoming aware and taking notice of the Divine Presence Who is like the air we breath or maybe, just maybe, God is the air we breath. It’s that simple and there is nothing more about it.

God is not out there and I must get Him. We tend to think of God as being somewhere out there beyond our reach and that somehow we have to nab Him—grab His attention. When you come to think of it, this is an arrogant presumption of ours. God is not an object. God is not some thing that I can catch or capture. God is not some spiritual butterfly that I can catch in the net of my prayers. God is not out there—rather I am in God.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.' Acts 17:24-28 NIV

St. Paul says, “In God we live, and move, and have our being.” We’re like the little fish that one day swam to his mom and said, “You know mommy today in school (no pun intended) they were talking about this thing called water. So I swam all around looking for this thing called water and I couldn’t find it. I swam to the top of the ocean—I couldn’t find it. I swam into the depths of the sea and I couldn’t find it. I swam to where the ocean met the land—I can’t find it. Where is this thing called water?”

We treat God just like that water that little fish was looking for. Consequently when we do that, we literally miss the boat. God is not out there. Rather, I am in God.

In God we live, we move, and have our very being. It’s as if God is a giant fishbowl. The fishbowl of creation and we are the fish in that bowl. We are surrounded by the Divine Presence.¹

God is a lot closer than most of us realize. He really does want to connect with us intimately. God wants us to partake of His character and presence, to savor and relish the ocean of Him. We cannot truly experience His presence without making space in our life for Him. Through contemplative prayer you can know God, because contemplative prayer is making space to shut out the noise that would distract us from hearing God’s voice which can be heard only by the ear of faith, by the ear of the inner heart. Prayer is one of the Christian disciplines necessary if we are going to truly move from a posture of just knowing about God into intimately knowing Him.

How do you do contemplative prayer? Be open to this communication. Be willing to read the Bible and consider the wider implication of the text not just to your situation, but to the world. What does it show about God’s character? Make time for God, even if it is five or ten minutes, that is a start. But sit somewhere quiet and focus on God.

It will not be long before you too realize that God is knowable and worth knowing. His comforting presence will envelope you if you make space for Him to do so.

¹Albert Haase, O.F.M., Toward Freedom & Joy (Living in God’s Presence), audio-cassette, St. Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, Ohio.

September 2007