Wisdom from Del: Cultivating Daily Stillness

We are so often told what we ought to do, but so seldom told how. As athletes of the Spirit, we are the ones that need to train and condition ourselves in preparation for growing into Christ’s likeness.

In cultivating the stillness of mind, in communing with God, we may emulate the activity of the sower in the parable – preparing the ground – as we practice and cultivate the habit of living in the present, “being present where we are.” By focusing our attention on the ordinary small acts of daily living, we resist the temptation to live with a background of incessant noise and outer distractions. Cultivating the habit of giving our attention to what we are doing creates a pattern of focusing our attention on the present. Little by little we thus habit and train ourselves that when in the Silence to still the mind and give God our attention.

We need a time apart daily to prepare our hearts and still our minds. If we plan to become proficient as a swimmer, or in any athletic adventure, we need to condition the body and practice, practice. There is, likewise, a period of preparation in attaining spiritual maturity and an effective prayer life. No skill is attained without steady focused interest, some understanding of and response to the Will of God.

A moment of quiet in the farmland around Samro School and the Ukweli Training Centre in Eldoret, Kenya

There is a need for us to be aware that we need not pray to God to do something for us when God has already created and provided us with all the potential to empower us to do for ourselves what we are asking God to do. “God will not do for us what we, as co-creators and junior partners of God, can do for ourselves.”

Our responsibility and awesome privilege is to recognize and affirm that the Power and Divine Grace to attain union with God resides in the All Wise, All Powerful, All Loving and Ever Presence of this Creator, “in whom we live, move, and have our being.”

God will not (cannot) do for me what I think I can do for myself. “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.” However, until we recognize, acknowledge and affirm, “It is Christ in me that is my hope of glory,”  until we recognize God as the Source, Center, Essence and Creator of all, then our lack of awareness blocks in us the flow of God’s Ever Present Activity which has been, and is, provided for us by our Creator. When clarity of vision and faith are present, the Power of Life resides in each of us, ready to respond to our summons.

We cannot, however, continue to talk of doing the works of God and ignore our part, an awesome privilege, for self-preparation and self-mastery which God’s Divine Grace makes possible for us to draw upon. He has given us the tool of prayer, but the great power of prayer consists not in asking but in learning how to receive.

~Del Anderson

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