Contemplative Prayer {Let Sleeping Dogs Lie}

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God. So always let sleeping dogs lie when you come to the place of contemplative prayer. For as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we must shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him.

In the aftermath of the storm, when we are still unsorted but no longer emotionally driven, this is where He does His transformation work. Moving from spiritual infancy to relational intimacy with our God is a challenge that includes the vulnerability of communicating with Him.

I wonder as I sit here today- is my faith based upon the adrenaline of emotionally fueled need? Or can I converse with my Savior when I am in His gentle abiding presence, even when I am not carried along by the powerful rescuing of His power? 

When I look back and see the places where there were two sets of footprints in the sand instead of His one, were we walking together in silence or was I sharing aloud my thoughts with Him?

When the emotion dies down and the dust settles, this is where we begin the discipline of figuring out how to talk to God on a daily basis. Like a marriage that moves beyond the honeymoon stage of emotional ups and downs, we can no longer base our faith on our response to the pendulum swing of feeling and response. 

Now that I am safely on dry ground, what can I say once the gratitude comes to an end and the adrenaline of decision runs out?

My transparent confession here is that I don’t know how to talk to God on a normal day- it feels stoic and detached if my prayer is not compelled by tears. And there is nothing lifegiving about an outlook on faith that requires pain to remain motivated.

This past week I have been anxious about my prayer life, so it was time to stop and settle myself into a sermon about surrender, yokes and sustainable faith. And so here today I will attempt to connect my stunted prayer life to the sermon at my home church, a weekend workshop I attended on fear, and silly pictures of my sleeping dog…

I sat down in my study for the first time since we completed it over the weekend, the space my husband created for my love of writing and hope for learning. God willing I will be going to school part-time in the Fall, but either way this is a new and sacred space for my creative and productive writing endeavors. So I paused here in this room to listen to the sermon from Sunday. 

It was a talk from Pastor Rick about keeping your tank full when you are tempted to try running on empty. After a nine-part series on living with margin, my church family wraps up this practical application series with a theme which turned out to be demonstrated right in front of me as I sat there listening-

My dog was asleep on her bed, back on the floor and legs in the air, eyes shut and tongue hanging out. It was clearly well with her soul. 

This is why yoga poses get named after dogs, because they know something we humans don’t- God created us to rest and refuel. This means laying flat on our backs with no agenda and no worries (even if we are normally itchy and high-octane, hell-bound on catching squirrels, retrieving balls and barking viciously at coyotes), relaxing even our tongue so that we do not speak but receive life-giving communion in the silence of our soul.

She was allowing her brain to enter into a state of complete vulnerable relaxation, because even the animals know that silence and solitude is required for healthy survival.

This high-powered, ball-fetching, saber-toothed machine was in a posture of refueling that expressed wisdom which far surpassed my straight back and crossed legs as I sat consuming Christianity in my rocking chair. And Pastor Rick talked for nearly 90 minutes about coming to Jesus for an easy yoke and a releasing of burdens.

But how do you find this kind of rest when

you don’t know how to talk to God

on the other side of a storm?

Last Saturday I went to a workshop at The Freedom Center called Fearless, and in the course of six hours I was invited to explore the deeper pieces of my relationship to Jesus. Especially significant to me was being reminded of a tool I already have in my belt which I rarely ever use- the beautiful practice of Lectio Divina. 

Lectio Divina is a divine reading of Scripture followed by a quiet contemplation of the words; you simply sit with the reading and absorb it into your mind. In practice over time, you begin finding a physical place in the Scripture where you belong, especially if it’s a story passage. The reader literally dwells in the reading, abiding in the meaning and allowing herself to feel whatever is the natural response to this invitation to join Jesus on the page.

I could see the disparity between my inability to pray out loud and my desire to meet Him only in the storm. When the emotional chaos is over, He invites me into the aftermath, which is the most intimate meeting of all, because in that quiet place of post-destruction is where we can speak with Him most calmly and receive His gentle sorting through the damage that was done.

Without the pressure of desperate need and imperative rescue, what do our words sound like when we speak to Him- or do we speak at all? If our conversations with Jesus only happen during storms, very little is actually said and we never develop a conversational relationship, but rather depend on emotion to drive our communication with God. But this is not sustainable. Thus, seeking relationship with Jesus in the gentle margins of drama is a significant part of spiritual formation.

During the workshop we specifically practiced Lectio Divina from the story of when Jesus calms the storm.

It reads like this:

Mark 4:35-41 (NLT)

³⁵ As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). ³⁷ But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

³⁸ Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

³⁹ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

After the reading we spent several minutes in silence allowing ourselves to connect with the text and find ourselves in it.

I found myself writing these words in my quiet reflection on the passage-

I am a bird above the storm. I cannot see what is happening, I don’t know who is involved. But I know I am afraid and there is danger.

The clouds begin to break apart very suddenly, and there is an invitation- keep flying onward or dive down and see what God has been doing here.

Ignore the damage and miss the healing, or stop and enter the aftermath in order to see Jesus face to face?

The storm has passed and the invitation is to come and see what God is doing there now…

What is God doing here with me now that the storm is over? What is He sorting through?

All week I have abstained from prayer because I don’t know what to say. I think my relationship to Him has been based on the emotional turmoil of the past few years- so what now?? I have come through a storm, but I am still myself, and God is still God, and how do I spend an entire lifetime as His beloved when I don't know how to talk to Him on a normal day?

So as I sat and listened to Pastor Rick discuss resting in Jesus, I found myself feeling ashamed and anxious- am I doing this spiritual growth thing right? Am I getting it down? Why don’t I have an abundance of peace? Is my margin big enough for deep healing to happen? Is my faith really so shallow???

All the while my dog snores at my feet, and God knocks at my heart and the light of peace rages outside my window.

“Daughter,” He says, “I am not in a hurry. I want to be in your story with you as Your source of deep soul-rest and contentment. Stop asking these questions of yourself and start asking them of Me. Don’t doubt yourself, doubt Me and then watch how I will exceed your expectations every time. Surrender the unsorted fallout, now that the storm is over, and abide with Me in the messy aftermath as we float together here on a clam sea of deep waters.”

Says my pastor as I rock and listen and worry, “It is miserable to sit in God’s waiting room when we are in a hurry and He is not.”

Jesus, I have a lovely room to wait in, but my mind is somewhere else today, chasing after every worry and fear that passes through my thoughts. I don't know how to relate to You outside of a storm.

So I look for storms for my faith to ride on. Like the worry that I won’t finish grad school when I haven't even started or been accepted yet. Irrational? But God! I am a full-time mommy of two- and today I have a sick boy home from school, and the fear rises up which says I cannot miss class and take care of my sick child at the same time, so what am I going to do, God?

Anxiety says quit while you are ahead, because it might be hard. Assume there is a storm even when there is not one, because who knows when another one will set in. Live each day like there is a storm, even when there is not. Search for storms and pray about them like crazy, never letting an opportunity pass you by to grab worry by the horns and ride it into the sunset.

And then how is God supposed to speak to us over the screaming chaos of our fears? If He is always rescuing us, how can He ever meet with us in the calm places of our mind?

So God leans in closer and says, “Meet Me in the margin and let sleeping dogs lie.”

And that margin is a discipline, one which requires contemplative prayer.

Friends, God has called me to prayer this week. No, not the prayer I say in the presence of others, but the prayer I speak aloud into the silence when I am alone with Him.

This is hard. It feels vulnerable to come to God without desperate need, but simply to approach Him for the sake of intimate conversation. To say to Him, "can we talk about what happened, now that it's over and I can think more clearly?"

When my guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God.

To communicate with the Spirit effectively, we must allow Him to calm the storm of our emotions and bring quiet to the chaotic places in our mind. Then we must be willing to meet with Him in the aftermath, amidst the silent disorder and quiet confusion, and begin to sort things out. Piece by piece, thought by thought, broken relationships and old wounds attended to in the quiet of our conversation which is slightly muffled by the vast silence all around us.

To be alone with God after the storm is to be absolutely and terrifyingly vulnerable. To speak in this space is even more so. To let sleeping dogs lie means to enter into a sacred space where the only agenda is relational intimacy.

Contemplative prayer happens in the margin of our emotions, in the space between input and reaction, observation and conclusion, realization and response. If we can widen the margin between the calming of the storm and the rapid moving onwards towards the next storm, in that sacred space we can find healing for our soul through a closeness of our Savior.

I learned an awakening fact at the Fearless workshop- Prayer is centered in the part of the brain that processes and understands what has happened post-reaction. So contemplative prayer is actually centered in the calm which comes after the storm.

Now I am no neuroscientist, so don’t correct my lack of knowledge on the subject of brain science. Just give me grace for the path of learning I am taking at my own slow pace. I’m doing the best I know how with the little information I have thus far. But according to what I heard, contemplative prayer happens in the rational part of our brain called the neocortex.

Here is what struck me when I learned this about prayer- I have a hard time praying because I feel like I should have a wave of emotion behind my words when I pray out loud. Otherwise I feel like they are not authentic.

Basically, I am only good at praying when I am in a storm- afterwards, I don't know what to say.

Whenever I pray in public, or even in quiet, I become calm and almost “emotionless” as my mind centers on the words and my awareness movse away from how I was feeling before I started the prayer. I disassociate from my emotions when I pray out loud. I thought this was a problem.

But wouldn’t this be a good thing for someone who struggles with anxiety? Yes. Because it means I can move out from under anxiety when I pray, because prayer brings my awareness to a part of my brain which is rational and good at reasoning and regulating emotion. And it explains a lot about how prayer practiced as a discipline over time literally heals the brain from unwanted emotion.

But somehow I have always considered myself a “bad” pray-er because I never feel "emotional" when I speak plain and simple words to God out loud- unless I am in a storm. When my prayers are desperate and broken and full of tear-filled repentant need for rescue, then I have strong communication with God. But one cannot live an entire prayer life dependent upon storms, because who can live in continual fear?

So I almost always write my prayers, because then they flow with emotion and feel genuine and also safe, since writing happens in a different place within the brain than speaking. Writing my prayers is great, and I have written countless prayers and treasure them and will pass them onto my children someday. But despite my written affluence, I still stumble to speak to God out loud. 

Yet I hear a call to create intimacy with Christ by meeting with Him in the margin and speaking with Him in the places that need freedom from fear. There is hope to know that peaceful prayer is actually supposed to be free from raging emotion, because God located it in a different place in our brain. It has a sacred space all it's own, and for good reason- it keeps is safe from the storm and accessible outside of emotional turbulence. Good news for me, but still hard to realize.

Unlike when I write to Him, when I actually talk to God I feel very small and insufficient and rather deflated. When I get quiet before God I can hear His invitation in the aftermath of emotional chaos, but I don't know how to reply. So often I am intimidated by the invitation to meet with Him in the calm, because I am so accustomed to meeting Him only in the chaos. But in the discipline of contemplative prayer, if I wait with humility and patience and trust His gentle presence, He will point out a quiet place where our conversation can begin.

As He meets me in my insecurities, He gently invites me to speak with Him in the places that accommodate intimate conversation.

It is this separation of emotion and prayer that feels foreign and confusing, vulnerable and intimate. Why am I here, if not to ask for something I need? To approach our God for the sake of being with Him, to come to Him unsorted and exposed and uncertain, this is what it means to let sleeping dogs lie. Don't upset the restful state of mind, but abide in it and receive much needed healing in calmer waters.

Just as contemplative prayer happens in the neocortex of the brain, I also learned that emotion is located in the limbic system, a separate part of the brain. This is where we feel- the place where the storm hits and the reaction happens. This is where we act without thinking and evaluate later. This is where regrets happen, and words we cannot take back. This is where shame takes root.

Thankfully for anxiety-prone people such as myself, the place inside our brain where we practice contemplative prayer is not the same place as where we experience violent emotional storms.

So there is a difference between braving the storm and speaking with the Savior. There must be an experience of both extremes- extreme emotion and extreme tranquility. To have a quiet mind allows God to meet us on a deeper level. Big emotions can pave the way for communion with God because they indicate the areas that need healing and create opportunity for invitation, but intimate conversation with God happens after the storm has passed. 

Braving the waves may initiate the start of a relationship with Him, but they cannot define it. We must meet with Jesus in the quite places of our mind where we can process His love for us and the reason for His rescue. When the dog is sleeping, let it be, because as sure as the dawn it will rise up and demand attention soon enough. When prayer is not fueled by emotion, pray anyways- even if it feels empty, as I know it does sometimes. 

In the letdown after a storm, contemplative prayer is an access to His presence that is only possible in the quiet state of still waters.

Prayer heals the brain because speaking to God requires mental processing, rational thought and awareness of the present moment. So in order to get from emotional response down into contemplative prayer, we must invite Jesus to discuss the storm with us after it is all over, so that we can come down from our fearful flight high in the sky and see what He is doing at ground level within us.

I liken the storm to the amygdala, that part of our limbic system which is in fight or flight mode.

My daughter calls the amygdala the "guard dog", one which is always on the lookout for danger. It worries, stresses, panics, doubts, and has not concept of time. It is a place of emotional turmoil- we need help to regulate and calm this internal chaos. Jesus, in my imaginative illustration here, is the hippocampus. This is a place in our brain which requires language in order to heal and grow. My daughter calls this the "wise owl" of her thoughts. It moderates the storm through analytical reasoning, builds context for situations and pulls things into perspective. It keeps the guard dog calm under stress.

If we put language to what we are feeling, if we pray aloud in the silence of the aftermath, we allow Jesus to enter in and move into the neocortex, that place in our brain where we can begin to pray and process and begin to develop sustainable, intimate relationship with Him.

This is good news for anxious, prayer-stunted, shell-shocked followers of Jesus such as myself.

I want to become brave enough to dive into the aftermath and talk rationally with Him about what has happened and what He is doing to sort it all out now.

Friends, the hope I have today is that I can assist in my own healing process by learning to how to pray. I activate my neocortex when I speak with Jesus, and I can process my anxiety in a healthy way through even the most timid conversation with Him. Now that I know this, I can consciously invite Jesus to meet with me in the stillness of my rational brain, separate from my emotion, so that we can converse together in peace. For an anxious worrier like myself, this is a great comfort. 

I look forward to practicing this more in the days to come as I anticipate going back to school.

I want to begin enter into awe and wonder when I approach conversation with God, as I desire to move down into the stillness of the aftermath. When I am anxious, I will remember the tool of contemplative prayer- it does not take away the cause of my anxiety, but it frees me up to converse with my Teacher about whatever is going on. It helps me find a sacred space to do healing work by His side. This is Jesus doing a transforming work within me, inviting His child to see not only the unsorted damage but to witness the miracle of soul repair that He is quietly carrying out.

We actively assist in our own healing when we practice contemplative prayer, and this happens through words that are humble, gentle and honest. This, my friends, is why He tells us that His burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

When Pastor Rick talks to us about soul-deep rest, he is talking about the promise that if we meet with Jesus in the margin through disciplines such as Lecto Divina and contemplative prayer, our brain will literally arrive in a place where we can communicate clearly with our God and receive the comfort and peace that we crave.

No, the problems are not solved, the worries are not erased. But they are given proper perspective, a place of submission beneath the gracious will of God. And He can begin to sort through the wreckage alongside us, and we will be in awe that He is so good to love us even when we feel so unsorted.

This is how you find rest 

and intimacy with God

on the other side of a storm.

Father, forgive me for neglecting to meet and talk with You on so many occasions. I have preferred to fly over the storm and ignore it, rather than waiting for You to part the clouds and inviting me to survey the damage with You so that we can begin the repair together. Please help me find the language I need to speak words of surrender to You so that I can experience the lightness of Your yoke upon my shoulders, and the freedom to slow my pace and arrive alongside You instead of moving on, away from healing and towards another storm. For myself and all those who are reading this today, I ask for You to quiet the chaos of our ego-mind so that we can experience the deep healing of trusting You with our emotional weariness. God, invite us again to survey the damage and meet with You in the place in our brain where we process information and contemplate Your words. May I learn to trust You both in the speaking and in the silence, both in the storm and in the peace, and please bless my feeble attempts to talk to You when the storm is over and I don’t know what to say.

Thank you for loving me even when I feel so unsorted.

In Jesus name, Amen.

As we go into this week, dear friends, may we remember that in order to exchange our emotional burden for the mental processing of peace, we must meet with Him in the calm which comes after the storm. Here the emotion dies down and the dust settles, because it is after the storm is over that He does His most intimate work within us, sorting gently and quietly through the wreckage as we talk about each piece with Him. And as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we can shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him. 

Thank you so much for contemplating this in prayer with me today- I very much appreciate my tiny tribe of readers.

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have that intimate conversation with Jesus for which He patiently awaits. So let sleeping dogs lie, and may all canines be peaceful and happy as we contemplate Gods' Word in the quiet aftermath of the storm :)

With Gratitude,

Rebecca

~*~

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