So much of what we call prayer is about being present to the presence of God. This is true whether it is petitionary prayer, intercessory prayer, contemplative prayer, centering prayer, or ritualistic prayer like praying the rosary. When we pray, we place ourselves in the presence of God and, through whatever method we happen to be using, ask for Him to be present with us in return.
But anticipation and regret kill presence. Fear and worry over the future take us out of this moment where God exists. Is it any wonder why He tells His people over and over, in both the Old and New Testament, not to worry and not to be afraid? The future is not where God’s presence resides. “When we go into the future, we don’t take God with us,” I have heard it said.
Shame and regret over the past do much the same thing. They take us out of the present where God lives. Look at how God reacts when he finds Adam, after eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, hiding in regret for what he did and shame over his nakedness. Clearly, God is disturbed not only by the fact that Adam ate the fruit He forbade him to eat, but also by the fact that Adam is hiding at all.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is very much alive and present in this moment. He is the God “I Am,” not the God “I was” or “I will be.” For this reason, he tells us through Psalm 46:10, to “Be still,” and through Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, to “Pray without ceasing” and “give thanks in all circumstances.” This stillness, this presence to His presence, is the same as ceaseless or continuous prayer. In other words, presence is prayer.
We honor God when we can be still. We worship Him when we can stay in the moment with Him. This requires faith, and it requires practice. But every time we return to stillness, every time we bring our attention back from whatever past we are stuck in or future we imagine, into this moment, we are doing the work of prayer.
~Robert Van Valkenburgh
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