If Your Prayers Have No Words, How Do You Know When God Answers?

For the past year-and-a-half, I've led a meditation group each Tuesday evening at Peace River Spirituality Center. We gather and listen to a short homily received electronically from the World Community of Christian Meditation. Next we spend 30 minutes together in silence. We close each evening with Compline,the same order of service prayed each night at The Abbey of Gethsemani. Our whole evening is just over an hour -- my favorite hour of the week.

In the fall, I was able to offer a six week class on meditation at First Presbyterian Church of Naples. Because folks there had a wide-spread of experience in meditation, we began with half an hour of teaching which I prepared to bring us to some common understandings of meditation as Christian prayer. It was there, in the give and take of the teaching time, that someone first asked me if I ever use words to pray. A very fair question.

Surely I write prayers for liturgy most weeks -- the prayer of adoration to begin the service, a prayer of confession we'll offer in unison, words of assurance and the prayers of the people; the benediction is prayer as well. But these are corporate prayers. But when I take personal time apart for prayer, just as during Tuesday's group, my prayers have become prayers of silent presence.

For me silent prayer is a two-step of faith. My prayer without words acknowledges in a profound way that God already knows -- so it's a prayer of trust. But it's also a prayer submission acknowledging that God's way in my life is better than any way I might try to negotiate, maneuver or suggest. Silent prayers keep me from trying to yank the control of life from God's hands. Trust and submission.

Trust and submission are not words common to our culture, so praying this way is counter-intuitive to much of who we've become. Over the past year there have been times when I've wondered if the silent path was enough even as I persisted in it. (Or perhaps compelled is a better word -- I've felt compelled into the very real presence of God through these times of silence).

The Rule of Benedict calls these small struggles or movements of spirit that lead us on a new path the conversion of life. While acknowledging an initial conversion into the Christian life, Benedict calls his followers to seek continual conversion day-by-day even moment-by-moment. It's the accumulaiton of these moments Benedict writes, in which spiritual transformation occurs.

But if all I do is sit in silence before God, no words, no images, no wants, no laundry list... how do I know if it's working, or if I'm simply fooling myself? Could this be a grand pious delusion, and not faithful prayer at all? I've wondered those very things. There have been moments when I've wondered if I should be leading folks to consider silence as their prayer.

And then weeks such as this one happen, when God answers my prayers that were without words. As situations and circumstances unfolded around me--I knew it was God's hand working out the deepest desires of my heart. I only slowly put together that prayer happened not in my words of petition, but in the silence of my obedience. And now I was watching God answer in my life and in the lives of those around me--prayers prayed without words. It's an odd and a wonderful experience to realize "that's an answer to prayer" - when the prayer was never formed in my mind or on my lips -- only in silent trust and submission to the One who loves me.

I'll be the first to admit that silent meditation is not everyone's cup of tea! Even with a desire to pray this way, sometimes it's a struggle. I've depended on words for so long [see GOSPEL OF JOHN DEVOTIONAL on my website] and in hoping to convince God of how things should turn out. But my two-step of trust and submission to His will is making subtle changes in so many areas of my life. And I have been graced with the courage to continue on this silent path.

How's your prayer life? If you'd like to try a different way, drop me an email. I'd be happy to share how you might begin on the silent journey. BLESSINGS AND JOY! THE CELTIC MONK