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| |  | Michael Fox CPCC,
founder of m�agine!,
is a professional
coach and trainer,
author and creative artist, whose work has been featured throughout
the world.
Michael is a
Certified Practitioner
of the
Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator.�
Do you know someone
who might benefit
from our weekly email?
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I didn't have a prayer...
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A short drive north of Chicago, in the community of Mundelein, is a retreat center available to Christian believers of all stripes. The university and monastery were built years ago around a lovely lake concealed to the world by acres of woods. It's a beautiful place that offers visitors a space of solitude and silence--a space where "essential prayer" happens, where supplicants can, without distraction, communicate with God.
Well, theoretically, they can.
On a beautiful spring day in April, as I sought to engage God in prayer, words proved elusive. Try as I might, I was unable to focus or even hold a thought. Instead, an old hymn imposed itself upon my thoughts. Just about the time I'd manage to hold a prayerful expression, with the next breath I'd find myself quietly singing this persistent old hymn.
* * *
Henry Francis Lyte, an Anglican Priest, was a published poet and hymnist of the nineteenth century. Mr. Lyte suffered from poor health most of his life and, at the age of fifty-four, succumbed to tuberculosis. Just weeks before his death on November 20th, 1847, Mr. Lyte composed one last hymn, a hymn reflecting upon his sense of the faithful presence of God in his final days. Each stanza of the hymn concludes with the simple, mournful plea, "abide with me." This powerful device reinforces the message of the hymn: a persistent supplication for God's abiding presence in every circumstance:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
* * *
There midst the beauty of the park in Mundelein, sitting in the shadow of a bridge neath the cover of the woods, Mr. Lyte's hymn, Abide WIth Me, unwittingly consumed my thoughts. I consciously tried to push the hymn from my mind to return to the serious business of prayer. I even tried to sing different songs. But every attempt somehow morphed back into Abide WIth Me.
I finally surrendered and started back through the woods to the monastery. As I walked, still I quietly sang, "Abide with me..." Now I can be a little slow on the uptake. It finally occurred to me, however, that what my soul was seeking that day--and perhaps, by extension, what God was seeking that day--was not my communication, but my communion. Prayer without words.
"O Lord, abide with me."
How might your prayer sometimes take the shape of simply abiding present and quiet with God?
Author Ruth Haley Barton has defined prayer as, "all of the ways we communicate and commune with God for the purpose of deepening the relationship." How might this definition of prayer transform both your perception and practice of prayer?
Relationships deepen through communication and communion. How then might prayer deepen our intimacy with God?
What would it look like to write an additional verse to the hymn, Abide With Me, a verse written from God's perspective, ending with his entreaty to us, "abide with me"? Try it! |
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Michael Fox
m�agine!
530/613.2774
407 Myrtle Drive
Farmerville, LA, USA 71241 |
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In addition to personal and professional coaching,
m�agine! specializes in spiritual transformation coaching,
employing its proprietary models
--Values, Vision, Voice and Heart, Soul, Mind & Strength--
as well as
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator� curriculum
published by CPP, the People Development People.
Michael's books include
Complete in Christ,
Complete in Christ Spiritual Transformation Workbook,
and Biblio�files.
Coaching fees are based upon a sliding scale. Contact us for details.
For additional information, visit our website at maginethepossibilities.net.
Limited scholarships are available for spiritual transformation coaching.
On the flip side, if you are able, please inquire about opportunities
to fund scholarships for those who cannot afford coaching fees.
View our archives!
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