On Patience in Prayer, Wisdom from John Main, and Learning Through Clumsiness

A Note from Me

When I sit down to pray the Jesus Prayer in the mornings, I feel pulled by two truths. Part of me wants to deepen my focus so I can give more of my attention to God. I think: It would be wonderful to grow my attention span. Another part warns me not to measure my worth by how well I perform or how hard I train. Spiritual practices aren’t about achievement. They’re about relationship building.

Learning to live between both of these truths is like learning to walk a tightrope.

Some days I lean too far toward control, gripping hard at concentration. Other days I let go so much that I drift, treating my prayer words like any other words, like background noise.

So much of the Christian life is learning to balance. That’s what I want—I want to be balanced. I’m tired of falling.

But no one learns to walk a rope without wobbling. You only learn by stepping onto the line, falling, and walking again. I think my biggest frustration with God is that I don’t like that it takes so long to balance. I want what he offers, faster. I don’t like feeling like a beginner, inept, childlike.

But then I remember the words: you must become like a child.

Children fall often. They wobble, stumble, and get up again. And through all that clumsiness, they eventually learn to walk.

That’s a truth I need: through clumsiness, I learn to concentrate.
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A Voice from the Christian Tradition

If you look at a watchmaker about to perform some deft movement with a fine pair of tweezers, you will notice how still and poised he is as he scrutinizes the inside of the watch through his eyeglass. His stillness, however, is one of complete concentration, serious absorption in what he is doing. Similarly in meditation our stillness is not a state of mere passivity but a state of full openness, full wakefulness to the wonder of our own being, full openness to the wonder of God, the author and the sustainer of our being, and a full awareness that we are at one with God.​—John Main, Word into Silence: A Manual for Christian Meditation​

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A Question to Carry

What helps you practice childlikeness with God?

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Keep wobbling,

—Jon