Turning Our Inner Attention Towards Jesus

“When I met Mother Teresa in Rome, I immediately saw how her inner attention was focused constantly on Jesus.” – Henri Nouwen

This past Sunday, I shared how this quote convicted me about where my own inner attention has been focused in recent months, and how one sister in Christ reminded me that “above all else, you are a worshiper first.” Each of us are different in what helps us to turn our inner attention towards Jesus, but I wanted to share two specifics ways that have been tremendously helpful for me in recent days.

Fixed-hour prayer, or the liturgy of the hours as it is also called, has been my lifeline. The idea behind it is not so much to set aside time to pray throughout the day, but rather to bring all of one’s day into prayer. Phyllis Tickle’s series of books, The Divine Hours, combines psalms, hymns, ancient and contemporary prayers, for morning, midday, evening and ending with compline before you sleep. Because most of the prayers are psalms, it immediately turns your focus outward in a worshipful way. You can also find a daily resource from Tickle here:

http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/prayer/fixed/index.php

Another great website is www.northumbriacommunity.org, which has written their own liturgy of the hours that a number of house churches have been using to frame their time together. They have also come out with a book recently entitled Celtic Daily Prayers: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community.

Carolyn Carney recently taught in the Inward Journey, Outward Journey adult ed class a few weeks ago on praying the hours. She passed out a very helpful handout that explained a little of the history and the significance of each of the hours. Please email me if you’d like to see a copy.

Secondly, listening to worship music during my subway ride to and from church has been a way to prepare myself for the day ahead, and also to let go of what has already happened and entrust it to God. Before I got married, music was a very significant way that I connected with God and somehow, after marriage, it has been less so, maybe because Jimmy is not as much of a music person. (and let me be clear, this is not his fault at all… people have been chiding me for teasing him too much in my sermons, so I fully admit, this is completely my own doing) So after many years, I started adding some worship songs to my iPod. One of my favorite songs these days is called “Revelation Song” and it is put out by Gateway Worship. It is not one of those songs that just talks about me and how devoted I am to Jesus. It is a beautiful reflection on John’s vision of Revelation 4 of the throne room of heaven. Take a listen sometime!

I am the first to admit that my efforts at turning my attention towards Jesus are often inconsistent and feel very small. But I do believe that God honors our desire to draw near to Him, and that He is the one who puts that desire in us in the first place. As the prayer goes, “Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve…” You may try something completely different or non-”traditional,” but my encouragement to you is to find even one small way this week to turn your attention to Jesus. He will be faithful to meet you.    – Christine