Jesus, I'm Listening

THIS BOOK IS IN “PUBLIC DOMAIN.”

IT IS NOT COPYRIGHTED

Chapter 1

“I walked back into the room and froze.

My wireless microphone was sitting in the bottom of my coffee cup.

I lived alone.

There wasn't another person in the house.

I just stood there staring...

and then I started laughing.”

For the first 70 years of my life,

I chased what most people call the American Dream.

You know the one —

work harder,

make more money,

buy more stuff,

and repeat until retirement...

or until your blood pressure gives up.

I was an overachiever.

A competitive, “I'll-outwork-everyone” kind of person.

Every morning I woke up with another mountain to climb,

another bill to pay,

and the whole time, trying to come up with another way to make a dollar.

I was busy…

but I wasn't happy.

Life wasn't exactly smooth sailing either.

I lived through two divorces,

and stress became a full-time roommate.

Even when things were going well, there was a persistent tug deep inside my heart telling me,

"Bill...

there has to be more to life than this."

So I went searching.

I visited church after church, hoping one of them would fill the emptiness inside me.

They all taught wonderful things,

but I still felt like I was standing outside a locked door,

wondering where the key was hidden.

Then I discovered something called Sacred Heart Yoga.

Every morning I faithfully sat down and began the yoga with the same simple prayer:

"Lord, how may I serve You this day?"

I had been told this was an ancient method of prayer.

There was only one small problem —

for almost two years, I never got an answer.

Nothing.

Silence.

Crickets.

Looking back, I can't help but laugh.

I can see clearly now that God had a plan.

I just wasn't able to see it then.

I was on a need-to-know basis, and I didn't need to know God's plans for me.

I've since learned that God's plans are always 100 times better than any plan that I could concoct.

Back then, I recorded the daily sessions of Sacred Heart Yoga and uploaded them to YouTube, hoping that they might help someone else.

Meanwhile, I was secretly thinking,

"I'm pretty sure Abraham wasn't unrolling a yoga mat every morning inside his tent."

Still, I kept going.

Then something strange began happening.

Little by little, I felt a growing conviction that it was time to stop doing these recordings every morning.

"But wait," I argued with myself.

"This is a good thing! After all, I'm asking God how I can serve Him every day!"

Then my ego got in the way of God's plan.

The problem was...

I didn't know how to listen.

Sometimes we're more attached to our routines than we are to listening for God's direction.

Then one morning, God decided that I wasn't listening to His subtle hints to me about quitting.

I got everything ready to record another session,

stepped away for just a minute to use the restroom,

and when I came back...

my wireless microphone was sitting in the bottom of my morning mug of coffee.

Not beside it.

Not near it.

Swimming in it.

The microphone was completely submerged,

and ruined.

Remember,

I lived alone.

There wasn't another person in the house.

I just stood there staring at my coffee.

Then I burst out loud with laughter.

I looked down at my coffee mug and I said out loud,

"Okay, Lord... I understand Your message! I'll quit now."

For the first time in two years,

I had finally received an answer to my daily prayer.

It just happened to arrive submerged in a cup of coffee.

That morning changed everything for me.

It was an awakening.

God proved to me that He was real and had been there all along.

I just wasn't listening well enough to hear Him and obey. I really thought that I could make deals with God, instead of loving Him and obeying Him.

Instead of following my normal daily routine of Sacred Heart Yoga,

Each day, I simply became quiet before God.

No script.

No program.

No performance.

Just listening.

Every morning since then, I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m.

Before my feet ever touch the floor, I ask God a simple question:

"What do You want me to do today?"

And then...

I listen.

I put away my ego, my desires, and my self created to-do list.

Over time, I learned that following God's will was far more fulfilling, than following my ego's makeshift ideas.

When I stopped trying to write my own story and started asking God to write it instead,

life became an adventure.

It became truly exciting.

Doors opened that I could never have opened myself.

Many things happened to me that I could never have planned, or executed, in a million years.

People crossed my path at exactly the right moment.

Problems found unexpected, and even miraculous solutions.

Opportunities appeared that I could never have created on my own.

I discovered something I had been searching for all those years:

peace, purpose, and joy.

Not because life suddenly became easy...

but because I finally stopped trying to be the author of my own life.

I've learned that the greatest adventure isn't making my own plans.

It's discovering what plans God has for me.

You may not find your microphone floating in your coffee cup.

Then again,

it might happen...

if that's what God thinks is necessary to get your attention.

And don't be surprised that God has a wonderful sense of humor,

because He does.

God loves to give us joy,

and loves to hear us burst out loud with laughter.

Chapter 2

Speak, Lord —I’m Listening

What Samuel Teaches Us About Centering Prayer

There are three wonderful lessons this passage teaches us about what we understand as Centering Prayer.

The first is that Samuel heard “the Word of the Lord.”

The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the Word, who was with God from the very beginning. (John 1:1–).

Throughout the Old Testament, the name “the Word of the Lord” appears again and again — more than two hundred times.

It was used as: "The Word of the Lord spoke to Abraham." Or, "The Word of the Lord came to Moses."

'The Word of the Lord' was Jesus speaking throughout the entire Old Testament.

These passages show that God has always desired to communicate with His people through Jesus. (Galatians 4:6)

From the beginning of history, God has been calling men and women to listen,

respond,

and walk with Him.

The second lesson is to notice when Samuel heard God’s voice.

He was lying quietly in bed.

His day was over.

His chores were finished.

Tomorrow’s worries hadn’t started yet.

His mind was finally still.

Isn’t that amazing?

Most of us spend our days occupied with what we call “the brain monkeys.”

They’re those little imaginary creatures that swing from thought to thought all day long.

One monkey is worrying about paying the bills.

Another is replaying yesterday’s embarrassing conversation.

Another is planning tomorrow’s grocery list.

Before long, you’ve got a whole troop of monkeys throwing bananas at one another,

and you’re trying to remember why you walked into the kitchen in the first place!

It’s no wonder some nights we can’t even fall asleep.

Our minds are hosting a full-blown monkey convention.

And apparently nobody remembered to hire security.

Yet, in slumber, as the noise settles and our hearts become quiet,

we are often in a much better position to listen for God’s gentle leading.

The Bible tells us that we are more than just physical beings.

We have both a physical body and a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44).

Our minds are wonderful gifts from God,

but they can also become wonderfully noisy.

Learning to become still before God isn’t about turning off our brains.

It’s about gently setting aside the endless chatter long enough to say,

“Lord, I’m listening.”

Sometimes the hardest part of prayer isn’t talking to God —

it’s convincing the monkeys to take a coffee break.

The third lesson is Samuel’s response.

Samuel responded with the heart of a child.

He didn’t argue.

He didn’t negotiate.

He didn’t say,

"Can we discuss this after breakfast?”

Instead, he was immediately willing to set aside his own plans,

his pride,

and his own will

so that he could do God’s will.

His response was simple,

humble,

and beautiful.

He was ready to listen.

And he was ready to obey.

That childlike willingness is at the very heart of Centering Prayer.

We become still.

We listen.

We surrender our will.

And each day we ask:

“Lord, how may I serve You today?”

Chapter 3

Be Still and Listen:

God Has Always Been Speaking To Us

The Roots of Centering Prayer:

These are some of my favorite passages in the entire Bible,

because they unlock a beautiful way of reading Scripture.

They're like finding the master key to a great library.

Suddenly, doors begin opening that you never even noticed before.

After I began studying these passages compiled together, I found myself reading the Bible with fresh eyes.

Instead of seeing isolated stories, I began seeing one continuous invitation from God that is woven throughout the entire Bible:

“Come — Be still — Listen — Obey — and Serve.”

Let's start at the very beginning.

Genesis tells us that before mountains,

oceans,

trees,

puppies,

mosquitoes,

and even your mother-in-law existed,

the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Yes, mosquitoes apparently came later.

I've always had a few questions about that decision.

Before anything else was created, God was already present and active.

God wasn't distant or asleep.

He was living,

moving,

creating,

and preparing.

Then God introduced Himself to Moses with the remarkable words:

“I am that I am.”

This reveals the eternal nature of God.

He is not merely the God who always was,

or the God who always will be.

He is the God who is with us now —

the ever-living,

ever-present God

who is active right now.

He isn't trapped in the pages of history.

He isn't waiting for tomorrow to become involved in our lives.

He is present,

as a spirit,

with us today.

When we come to John's Gospel, another beautiful piece of the puzzle falls into place.

John tells us:

“In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.”

Then, a few verses later, John tells us that:

“the Word became flesh.”

Christians understand the Word to be Jesus Christ.

The same divine Word who was present in the beginning,

entered human history,

walked among us,

and revealed the Father's heart.

At the Last Supper, Jesus declared:

“I am who I am.”

These passages combined reveal that Jesus is an eternal Spirit, who was with God in the beginning.

Jesus is the Son of God,

who was always present,

who is present today,

and who will always be present as a Spirit of God.

Then we arrive at one of my favorite moments in the Old Testament.

Elijah expects God to appear in spectacular fashion.

Surely God will arrive with a hurricane!

Or perhaps an earthquake!

Maybe fire shooting from heaven!

If God really wanted to get Elijah's attention,

this seemed like an excellent opportunity for

the full heavenly special-effects department.

Instead,

God surprises him.

The wind comes...

but God is not in the wind.

The earthquake shakes the mountain...

but God is not in the earthquake.

Fire rages...

but God is not in the fire.

Then comes something almost easy to miss, —

a still, small voice, that's only a whisper.

Isn't that just like us?

We often expect God to communicate with:

surround sound,

flashing lights,

fireworks,

and maybe a billboard along the interstate that says:

“ATTENTION! TURN LEFT AT THE NEXT STOPLIGHT!”

Preferably, with our name flashing above it,

so there can be absolutely no misunderstanding.

Instead, He often speaks so gently that

we must become quiet simply to notice Him.

This is why stillness matters.

If God often speaks with a gentle voice,

then constantly filling our minds with noise

makes hearing Him much more difficult.

Most of us spend our days with our minds

overwhelmed with worries,

solving problems,

paying bills,

and working.

I affectionately envision my own mind as my attic.

And my attic is filled with 1,000 squirrels.

They're having an open-air festival, while opening new, and undesirable, entrances into my attic.

They're chewing on the wires.

They're dancing on the rafters.

They're making confetti out of my most important stored papers.

And apparently none of them has any intention of leaving.

Therefore, to hear God,

I must put the squirrels to sleep.

This doesn't mean climbing up into the attic and singing lullabies to them.

I do this by getting myself nearly to sleep, but not totally asleep.

This is called slumber.

Slumber is when you have released all of your worries.

It's right before falling totally asleep,

or right after waking up.

In slumber,

the squirrels finally settle down.

The attic becomes quiet.

And I am finally able to hear God's still, soft voice.

Centering Prayer is simply taking a few moments each day

to let the squirrels go to sleep.

We become still before God,

not because silence has magical power,

but because we want to give our full attention to the One who loves us.

We quiet our own plans,

our worries,

and our endless internal conversations,

so we can sincerely ask God:

“What would You have me do today?”

And then comes the part that can be surprisingly difficult.

We stop talking.

We listen with open hearts,

ready to obey whatever He teaches us through His Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not an abstract idea,

or a distant reminder that God exists.

God put the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. (Galatians 4:6)

Scripture describes the Spirit as God's active

presence —

teaching,

guiding,

comforting,

convicting,

empowering,

and producing His fruit within believers.

Through the Holy Spirit,

God's work becomes personal.

His peace becomes our peace.

His wisdom becomes available to us.

His love begins transforming the way we live.

And little by little,

we begin discovering that listening to God isn't just something that happened to Moses,

Samuel,

Elijah,

or the apostles thousands of years ago.

God is still present.

God is still active.

And God still wants His children to walk with Him and serve Him.

Jesus is our friend. (John 15:15)

He is the way, the truth, and the giver of eternal life. (John 14:6)

To me, this is the beautiful invitation that runs from Genesis to Revelation.

God has always desired to be with His people.

He has always been calling men and women to hear His voice,

trust His leading,

and live under His loving authority.

Centering Prayer is the response to that invitation.

It is simply making time each day to become still before the Lord,

to listen with humility,

and to say from the heart:

“Lord Jesus… how may I serve You today?”

And then...

for once...

we give the squirrels the morning off,

stop doing all the talking,

and listen.

Chapter 4

God Is Spirit:

Learning to Listen, Love, and Walk With Him

Worshiping the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

I truly love God with all my heart,

all my soul,

all my mind,

and all my strength.

And the older I get, the more amazed I am

that following God's will has turned out to be far more joyful and peaceful than following my own.

If someone had told me years ago that surrendering my plans would actually give me more freedom,

I probably would have smiled politely, nodded,

and then checked to see what they were trying to sell me.

Yet that has been my experience.

The love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self-control,

that Paul describes as the fruit of the Spirit have become more than beautiful words printed on a page.

They have become treasures that God patiently grows within us as we learn to:

listen to Him,

trust Him,

obey Him,

and walk with Him.

And unlike most treasures in this world,

you don't need a bigger house to store them.

You automatically get a bigger heart.

I don't actually mean cardiomyopathy, where your heart grows in size.

I mean our spiritual hearts become bigger to be able to hold the Holy Spirit's fruit and gifts.

God Is Spirit

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well,

He said something that completely changed the way I understand worship:

“The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,

for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him, must worship in spirit and truth.”

Think about those words.

God is Spirit.

And God is actually seeking people who will worship Him in spirit and truth.

Those words have become one of the foundations of my understanding of Centering Prayer.

Centering Prayer is taking the time to

listen to the Spirit of Truth.

Then, discerning the Spirit of Truth.

Obeying the Spirit of Truth.

Serving the Spirit of Truth.

Then, listening again to the Spirit of Truth.

Discerning. Obeying. And, Serving the Spirit of Truth, once again.... and again.... and again.

While worship is certainly expressed in songs,

prayers,

Scripture,

and gathering with other believers.

Jesus also points us toward something deeply personal —

a living relationship with the living God.

The Father is looking for people whose hearts are open to Him.

People who sincerely desire to know Him.

People who love Him.

People who listen to Him.

And people who are willing to follow Him.

That makes worship much bigger than what happens inside a church building.

Church may last an hour on Sunday.

But, our relationship with God lasts a lifetime.

God doesn't disappear when the closing hymn ends.

“Lord, How May I Serve You Today?”

Each morning,

before the day's appointments,

errands,

surprises,

problems,

phone calls,

and misplaced reading glasses begin competing for my attention,

I simply ask:

“Lord, how may I serve You today?”

And then I try to listen with an open heart.

Sometimes the answer is wonderfully ordinary.

Call someone who needs encouragement.

Show patience instead of irritation.

Help a stranger.

Be generous.

Forgive quickly.

Keep your mouth shut when your mouth has developed an entirely different plan.

Sometimes the greatest acts of obedience don't look very spectacular at all.

There are no trumpets.

No angels appear.

Nobody writes a book about it.

Sometimes God may simply be asking us to love the person standing directly in front of us.

Occasionally, God's plans are quite different from mine.

Which is funny,

because I keep acting surprised —

as though the Creator of the Universe's plan might not be quite as well thought out as mine.

You would think I would have learned by now.

Pray Without Ceasing

Paul tells us to:

“Pray without ceasing.”

I don't believe that means we should spend every waking moment on our knees, with our hands folded,

or trying to sing hymns while standing in the grocery checkout line.

That might be especially confusing to the person standing behind us.

Rather, I understand it as taking the time,

at intervals throughout the day,

to listen for what the Holy Spirit wants me to do.

All through the day I pause and ask simple questions:

“Lord, should I say this?”

“Should I buy this?”

“Should I go there?”

“Should I do this?”

More often than not, I experience the answers coming quickly and quietly.

Sometimes they seem to come before I have even finished asking the question in my mind.

To me, those moments are reminders that God already knows what is in my heart before I finish putting it into words.

Sometimes it's a phrase.

The most common advice I'm given is:

“You don't need that.”

It seems that my desires, and my ego, are so big that I keep hearing that one phrase repeated.

“You don't need that.”

Later I'll hear, “You don't need this.”

Even later the Holy Spirit says “You don't need that either."

I have discovered that the Holy Spirit, and advertising agencies, occasionally have very different plans for my money.

Sometimes God puts into my heart a growing conviction.

Sometimes it's a persistent nudge that simply refuses to leave until I pay attention.

I've learned that God rarely needs a megaphone when we're willing to listen.

The problem was not that God was always silent.

Sometimes,

I simply wasn't listening closely enough to hear Him.

Life Is Filled With Tiny Crossroads

Life, I've discovered, is really a series of tiny crossroads.

Hundreds of times each day we choose between serving our own pride,

our fears,

our comfort,

our ambitions,

our money,

our egos, —

or serving God.

Most of those decisions won't make tomorrow's headlines.

There probably won't be a breaking-news banner announcing:

“MAN CHOOSES PATIENCE IN GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT.”

But perhaps heaven notices.

Because all those seemingly insignificant decisions,

taken together,

shape the person we become.

Centering Prayer is helping me discover that surrendering isn't losing freedom.

It's discovering that true freedom is walking with Christ.

Sometimes God Says, “Wait”

The Scriptures repeatedly invite God's people to wait upon the Lord.

Jesus told His disciples to wait for the Father's promise.

David wrote:

“Wait on the LORD.”

Isaiah promised that:

“They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.”

Waiting isn't wasted time.

It's one of God's favorite classrooms.

Unfortunately, most of us would prefer the accelerated course.

We live in a world of instant messages,

instant answers,

instant deliveries,

instant entertainment,

and microwaves that occasionally seem unreasonably slow.

Then God says:

“Wait, be quiet and listen.”

And suddenly thirty seconds feels like an Old Testament wilderness experience.

But while our culture rewards speed,

God often grows wisdom in quiet moments.

We wait because we trust that God is already at work,

even when we cannot yet see what He is doing.

Waiting teaches us something that rushing never can:

trust.

The Fruit Begins to Grow

As this way of life grows, something beautiful begins to happen.

We become increasingly aware that God has never really been absent.

He has been quietly present all along—

in ordinary conversations,

unexpected opportunities,

peaceful moments,

difficult decisions,

and acts of kindness that seem almost too small to matter.

The Holy Spirit gently reshapes our hearts.

Love begins growing where bitterness once lived.

Patience begins appearing where frustration used to rule.

Kindness begins replacing criticism.

And peace begins moving into the rooms where worry had apparently signed a lifetime lease.

The transformation usually doesn't happen overnight.

God patiently works within us,

day after day,

choice after choice,

prayer after prayer.

Little by little,

we begin becoming more loving,

more peaceful,

more patient,

more gentle,

and more willing to serve.

The fruit of the Spirit begins to become the fruit of our lives, filling our hearts.

The Bible Becomes a Living Invitation

Scripture itself begins to feel different as well.

It is no longer simply a remarkable collection of ancient writings,

although it certainly is that.

It becomes a living invitation to know the living God who inspired it.

Every page begins pointing us toward a deeper relationship with God.

We begin seeing people listening to God throughout Scripture.

Moses listened.

Samuel listened.

David listened.

Elijah listened.

The prophets listened.

The apostles listened.

Paul listened.

Jesus Himself continually sought the Father's will.

Again and again,

the pattern appears:

God speaks.

His people listen.

They trust.

They obey.

And God works through them.

The Bible becomes not merely a book to study,

but a companion that continually draws us back into God's presence —

to the God who is Spirit,

who teaches,

corrects,

comforts,

strengthens,

and leads His children.

But if we want to hear a still, small voice,

we occasionally have to become...

still.

That's where many of us discover the difficulty.

Talking to God can be easy.

Giving God our prayer list can be easy.

Giving God our suggestions can be even easier.

Some of us could probably prepare a very impressive PowerPoint presentation explaining exactly what God ought to do next.

But listening?

Listening requires us to surrender

the microphones,

and our hearts.

Worship Becomes a Way of Life

Jesus said:

“The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,

for the Father seeks such to be His worshipers.”

I believe those words describe much more than what happens during an hour on Sunday morning.

They describe a way of living.

Worship doesn't end when we leave church.

It continues Monday morning.

It continues at work.

It continues while driving.

It continues while making decisions.

It continues when somebody irritates us.

It continues when we're frightened.

It continues when we're joyful.

It continues when we're waiting.

It continues whenever we turn our hearts toward God and ask:

“Lord, what would You have me do?”

Centering Prayer, for me, is simply making room every day to become still before God,

to listen with humility,

to discern what we receive in the light of Christ's teachings,

and then to joyfully follow wherever Christ leads.

We listen.

We trust.

We obey.

We serve.

And gradually,

the fruit begins to grow.

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

Then something wonderful happens.

Worship is no longer something we do occasionally.

Worship becomes the way we live.

Our lives become a continuing conversation with God.

Our choices become opportunities to serve Him.

Our love for other people becomes an expression of His love within us.

And every morning gives us another opportunity to become still,

open our hearts,

and begin again with one beautifully simple question:

“Lord Jesus... how may I serve You today?”

Then comes the part of prayer that may be both the simplest and the hardest.

We stop talking.

We become still.

We wait.

And...

We listen.

Chapter 5

You Have Ears —But Are You Listening?

Opening Our Hearts to the Still, Small Voice of God

Have you ever had someone standing three feet away talking to you...

and suddenly realized you hadn't heard a single word they said?

Your ears were working perfectly.

Your eyes were open.

You were even nodding occasionally.

You may have thrown in a well-timed “Uh-huhs.”

But your brain?

Your brain had apparently packed a small suitcase and left town.

Most of us know exactly what that's like.

We can look straight at something

and never really see it.

We can hear every word someone says and completely miss its meaning.

Jesus knew this wasn't just a human communication problem.

It was a spiritual one.

Eyes That See and Ears That Hear

When His disciples asked why He spoke in parables, Jesus gave an astonishing answer.

Some people looked,

but they didn't really see.

Some people listened,

but they didn't really hear.

Their ears worked.

Their eyes worked.

Yet their hearts had become closed.

Jesus wasn't talking about eyesight or hearing tests.

He was talking about something much deeper:

the heart's ability to recognize God's presence and respond to His voice.

Then Jesus says something beautiful to His disciples:

“Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.”

That is the kind of seeing and hearing I want.

I don't merely want to know about God.

I want to know God.

I don't merely want to read the words of Jesus.

I want those words to transform the way I live.

And I don't merely want to spend my life talking to God.

I want to listen.

God Says, “Lean In”

Isaiah gives us this beautiful invitation:

“Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live.”

Proverbs echoes the same thought:

“Incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.”

I love that phrase:

“Incline your ear.”

It describes something active.

It doesn't say:

“Sit there until wisdom accidentally bumps into you.”

It says:

Lean in.

Turn your attention toward God.

Listen intentionally.

Open your heart.

That's important because listening requires something from us.

Attention.

If someone we deeply love whispers something important to us,

we naturally lean closer.

We don't turn up the television.

We don't start checking email.

We don't begin explaining to them what we think they were probably going to say.

We lean in...

because we don't want to miss a word.

To me, that is a beautiful picture of Centering Prayer.

We lean our hearts toward God.

Giving God the Microphone

This is one reason I find Centering Prayer so meaningful.

It gives me a quiet place to lean in.

It isn't about trying to manufacture a spiritual experience.

It isn't about forcing God to speak according to my timetable.

And it certainly isn't about handing God my daily agenda and asking Him to sign at the bottom.

It's about becoming still enough that my own thoughts are no longer competing for God's microphone every five seconds.

And my thoughts can put up quite a fight.

I've discovered that my mind is a talented storyteller.

Before breakfast, it has already imagined three arguments that never happened,

solved two problems that don't actually exist,

rewritten yesterday's conversation four different ways,

and planned next Tuesday —

even if today is only Thursday.

My imagination deserves an award for productivity.

My peace, however, would prefer a coffee break.

Putting the 1,000 Squirrels to Sleep

I like to imagine my mind as an attic.

And apparently my attic came fully furnished with approximately 1,000 squirrels.

One is worrying about tomorrow.

Another is chewing on yesterday.

Three are rearranging problems that I've already solved.

A dozen are chasing something I can't even remember.

And somewhere in the back,

two squirrels appear to be arguing about something I said back in 1987.

It's a busy attic.

When I become still before God,

the squirrels gradually begin settling down.

They stop chewing on the wiring.

They stop racing across the rafters.

They stop reorganizing every box marked “Things Bill Cannot Possibly Change.”

And eventually...

the attic becomes quiet.

Centering Prayer isn't about becoming less aware.

For me,

it is about becoming more aware.

When the noise settles,

I begin noticing God's goodness in places I would have hurried right past.

I become slower to react.

Quicker to forgive.

More patient with other people.

And —

perhaps most surprisingly —

more patient with myself.

Discord Sneaks In Quietly

Discord often begins quietly.

Rarely does it march into our lives accompanied by a brass band and a giant flag announcing:

“ATTENTION! YOUR PEACE IS NOW LEAVING THE BUILDING!”

That would actually be rather helpful.

Instead,

discord slips in through tiny cracks.

A little resentment here.

A little pride there.

A little fear.

A little impatience.

A little anger we decide to keep around because we have become strangely fond of it.

Before long,

our hearts begin sounding like an orchestra where every musician has decided to play a different song.

The trumpet is playing Beethoven.

The violin has chosen country music.

The drummer appears to have joined another band entirely.

And our peace is sitting in the back wondering what happened.

Harmony returns when we allow God to become the Conductor again.

We stop insisting on playing our own song.

We become still.

We listen.

And we allow Him to lead.

How Do We Recognize His Leading?

The more I learn to listen for Christ's guidance,

the more I discover that His Spirit consistently leads toward the very qualities that Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit:

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

These become important signs along our spiritual road.

If what I believe I am hearing leads me toward

hatred,

pride,

cruelty,

revenge,

or selfishness,

I need to stop and discern carefully.

Because those things don't resemble the fruit Jesus is trying to grow.

But when the result is greater love,

greater peace,

greater patience,

greater kindness,

and greater willingness to serve —

we begin looking more like Christ.

Those qualities don't merely make us nicer people.

They transform the atmosphere around us.

Peace has a way of spreading.

Kindness has a habit of multiplying.

Love has an amazing ability to enter a room before we've finished speaking.

God Starts With One Heart

Sometimes we imagine that changing the world requires changing millions of other people.

That's convenient,

because changing other people is always much more appealing than changing ourselves.

We can usually produce a very impressive list of people God ought to straighten out.

Jesus often begins with a much shorter list.

Me.

You.

One heart.

One decision.

One act of forgiveness.

One act of kindness.

One quiet morning at a time.

Before God changes the world through us,

He often begins by changing the world within us.

And that transformation begins when our hearts become willing to listen.

The Kingdom Begins Changing the Way We Live

I believe this is why Jesus placed such emphasis on hearts that can truly hear Him,

and eyes that can truly see Him.

When our hearts become attentive to God,

we begin living differently.

We love more freely.

We forgive more quickly.

We become less interested in winning every argument —

which can be terribly disappointing when we have spent twenty minutes preparing an excellent comeback.

We become more interested in serving Christ.

The Kingdom of God is no longer merely something we read about.

It begins shaping the way we think,

the way we speak,

the way we treat people,

the way we forgive,

the way we spend,

the way we serve,

and the way we live each day.

Imagine What Could Happen

Imagine neighborhoods filled with

people who genuinely sought God's wisdom

before speaking in anger.

Imagine families where forgiveness

became more common than keeping score.

Imagine marriages where winning the argument

became less important than loving the person.

Imagine churches where humility mattered

more than being right.

Imagine communities where people stopped asking,

“What's in this for me?”

and started asking,

“Lord, how may I serve?”

Imagine nations led by people who

sincerely desired

justice,

mercy,

wisdom,

and peace.

We often think such a transformation would have to begin with millions of people.

But perhaps we're thinking too big.

God has always been remarkably good at starting with one person.

Abraham.

Moses.

Samuel.

David.

Elijah.

Mary.

Peter.

Paul.

One person who hears.

One person who trusts.

One person who obeys.

One person willing to say:

“Here I am.”

It Begins With Listening

That enormous vision begins much smaller than we often imagine.

It begins with one person becoming still before God.

One person opening their eyes.

One person inclining their ear.

One person opening their heart.

One person willing to put aside the noise long enough to listen.

That is at the heart of Centering Prayer.

We aren't trying to force God to speak.

We aren't trying to create something

supernatural through our own effort.

We are making ourselves available to God.

We become still.

We listen.

We discern.

We trust.

And when Christ leads us,

we obey.

Jesus said:

“Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.”

Isaiah said:

“Incline your ear, and come unto me.”

Proverbs tells us to:

“Incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.”

Again and again,

Scripture gives us the invitation.

Come.

Open your heart.

Incline your ear.

Listen.

And perhaps the greatest obstacle isn't that God has nothing to say.

Perhaps we're simply so busy talking,

planning,

worrying,

arguing,

rushing,

and supervising those 1,000 squirrels in the attic

that we haven't given ourselves enough quiet to hear Him.

So tomorrow morning,

before the squirrels wake up,

before the world starts shouting,

and before our own plans begin demanding attention,

we can become still before God.

We can open our hearts.

We can incline our ears.

And we can quietly pray:

“Lord Jesus... I'm listening.”

Then comes the important part.

Don't immediately start talking again.

Give God the microphone.

And listen.

Chapter 6

Stop Waiting for the Kingdom: Jesus Says It Is Here

Living Today With Christ as King of Our Hearts

If you had walked beside Jesus during His ministry,

you would have heard Him speak again and again about one magnificent subject:

The Kingdom of God.

John the Baptist announced:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

Then Jesus began His own ministry proclaiming:

“Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Jesus preached the Good News of the Kingdom.

Then He sent His twelve disciples out with instructions to proclaim:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

Apparently Jesus didn't want anyone to miss the announcement.

John said it.

Jesus said it.

The disciples said it.

And then Jesus taught us to pray:

“Let Your Kingdom come. Let Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

When I put these scriptures together,

I hear an invitation that is enormously important:

Don't spend your entire life looking into the distance for God's Kingdom,

while overlooking what Christ is calling you into today.

“The Kingdom of God Is Within You”

Then Jesus makes an extraordinary statement in Luke 17.

The Pharisees ask Him when God's Kingdom will come.

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable question.

Perhaps they were expecting Jesus to provide a date.

Maybe a location.

Possibly a few advance reservations.

Instead, Jesus tells them:

“God's Kingdom doesn't come with observation;

neither will they say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ for behold,

God's Kingdom is within you.”

That changes everything.

People were looking for something they could point toward.

Jesus pointed somewhere entirely different.

Within.

This Kingdom would not be merely another earthly government.

Jesus later tells Pilate:

“My Kingdom is not of this world.”

That doesn't mean His Kingdom has nothing to do with our lives on Earth.

Quite the opposite.

Jesus taught us to pray that God's will would be done:

“on earth as it is in heaven.”

The Kingdom begins wherever God's will becomes more important to us than our own will.

And for me,

that begins in the heart.

The Kingdom is not a place,

it’s a winning attitude.

It’s a choice.

The Kingdom Was “At Hand”

I think we should pay close attention to the words Jesus actually used.

He didn't say:

“The Kingdom might eventually be somewhere in the neighborhood.”

He said:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

John the Baptist said it.

Jesus said it.

Jesus told His disciples to say it.

Then Jesus made another remarkable promise:

“There are some standing here who will in no way taste death

until they see God's Kingdom come with power.”

Those words were spoken to real people standing in front of Him.

This statement is so important that it is made six times in the three parallel gospels.

These statements cannot be ignored.

These passages caused me to look much more seriously at the Kingdom,

as a spiritual reality,

that Christ's followers were already being invited to experience.

And Luke tells us something else remarkable about Jesus before He was even born:

“He will reign... forever; His Kingdom will never end.”

His Kingdom isn't temporary.

It doesn’t leave and then comes back later.

Christ is, was, and always will be, our King.

And His Kingdom has no closing time.

No election cycle.

No term limits.

No palace coup.

No sign on the heavenly door saying:

“Management will return at a later date.”

So Where Is the King?

This brings us directly to Centering Prayer.

Paul writes in Galatians 4:6:

“God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.”

Think about that.

The Spirit of His Son,

into our hearts.

If Christ's Spirit has been sent into our hearts,

then Jesus is not merely someone for us to remember from two thousand years ago.

Nor do I believe we should live as though our only relationship with Christ is waiting for Him to become relevant sometime in the future.

Through the Holy Spirit,

Christ is present with His people, now.

He teaches.

He comforts.

He corrects.

He strengthens.

He leads.

And we can develop a loving relationship with Him.

But every relationship requires something very basic:

communication.

If I do all the talking,

that isn't much of a conversation.

I know this because I spent many years being remarkably good at giving God information,

He presumably already had.

“Lord Jesus, How May I Serve You Today?”

This is why Centering Prayer has become so precious to me.

Each morning I begin with one simple question:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

I am acknowledging something before my feet even touch the floor:

Jesus is King.

And I am not.

That's actually quite liberating.

I don't have to run the universe before breakfast.

I don't even have to run my own little corner of it without help.

I simply ask the King what He wants me to do today.

Sometimes His guidance leads me to encourage someone.

Sometimes it reminds me to be patient when I'd much rather be irritated.

Sometimes it nudges me toward generosity.

Sometimes it tells me to forgive.

And sometimes it asks me to keep my mouth shut precisely when I have prepared,

what I consider to be, an absolutely magnificent speech.

Those can be particularly painful acts of obedience.

My Ego Would Like to File an Appeal

I've discovered that my ego is a remarkably talented attorney.

When Christ's leading conflicts with what I want,

my ego immediately opens its law office.

It can produce evidence.

It can find witnesses.

It can prepare exhibits.

It can argue both sides of the case.

It can file three appeals.

And somehow,

after all of that,

it always reaches the same verdict:

Bill was right.

Fortunately,

the Holy Spirit is much better at telling the truth than my ego is at presenting its case.

Centering Prayer teaches me to stop allowing my own will to occupy the throne.

That's where the Kingdom becomes intensely personal.

The question is no longer merely:

“Where is God's Kingdom?”

The question becomes:

“Who is the King of my heart today?”

“Let Your Will Be Done”

Jesus connected the Kingdom with God's will when He taught us to pray:

“Let Your Kingdom come. Let Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Those two ideas belong beautifully together.

God's Kingdom.

God's will.

When I insist on my will,

I am trying to occupy the throne.

When I surrender my will to Christ,

I am acknowledging my King.

This is why Centering Prayer isn't simply about becoming relaxed.

It isn't Christian nap time.

It isn't merely sitting quietly because silence feels pleasant.

It is surrender.

I become still because I want to listen.

I listen because I want to know Christ's will.

I seek His will because I love Him.

And because I love Him,

I want to serve Him.

The Kingdom Begins Changing Us

Little by little,

something beautiful begins happening.

As we surrender our plans and become willing to follow Christ's leading,

His character begins growing within us.

Love becomes more natural.

Joy becomes steadier.

Peace begins replacing anxiety.

Patience quietly appears in conversations where it used to be nowhere on the guest list.

Kindness becomes less of an obligation and more of a habit.

Gentleness begins replacing anger.

Self-control starts telling our mouths —

“Perhaps we don't need to say that.”

The fruit of the Spirit doesn't usually appear all at once like popcorn in a microwave.

It grows more like an oak tree —

slowly,

steadily,

sometimes almost unnoticed from one day to the next.

Then one day we look backward and realize:

God has been changing us all along.

That is the Kingdom becoming visible in a human life.

The King Gives Gifts to His People

Scripture also teaches that the Holy Spirit distributes different gifts’

to different members of Christ's Body,

for the common good.

Paul describes wisdom,

knowledge,

faith,

healing,

miraculous powers,

prophecy,

discernment of spirits,

languages,

and interpretation.

Different people receive different gifts.

That's important.

You don't have to receive my assignment.

I don't have to receive yours.

And neither of us needs to become spiritually jealous because somebody else's job looks more impressive.

A foot doesn't need to spend its life furious because it wasn't promoted to eyeball.

Every part belongs to the same Body.

Every gift comes from the same Spirit.

And every gift is meant to serve God's purposes.

God delights in working through ordinary people.

That's very encouraging to me.

Because if God were waiting for perfect people before allowing anyone to serve in His Kingdom,

heaven's Help Wanted department would have a serious staffing problem.

Instead,

God takes willing hearts.

He teaches them.

He transforms them.

He gives them what they need.

And then He sends them out to love and serve His children.

Don't Miss Today While Waiting for Tomorrow

Christians have understood the Bible's passages about the Kingdom and Christ's coming in different ways for centuries.

I respect Christians who sincerely read some of those passages differently than I do.

But whatever we believe about events still to come,

we should never allow tomorrow to make us miss Jesus today.

That is the danger I want this article to address.

If I spend my whole life believing that Christ's Kingdom is only something that will arrive later,

I may overlook the invitation Christ has placed before me, in my heart, right now.

Jesus is calling me to love now.

Forgive now.

Serve now.

Trust now.

Listen now.

Follow now.

Do God's will on Earth now.

We don't need to settle every question about the future before beginning a relationship with Christ in the present.

The King is calling us today.

The Kingdom Is Not Another Earthly Government

Jesus told Pilate:

“My Kingdom is not of this world.”

That statement is enormously important.

Jesus didn't come simply to establish another human political system.

Earth has had plenty of those.

Empires rise.

Empires fall.

Kings are crowned.

Kings die.

Governments change.

Borders move.

Flags change.

History books get thicker.

But Jesus' Kingdom:

“will never end.”

His Kingdom is of a different nature.

It reaches into human hearts.

It transforms people from within.

It changes how we love.

It changes how we forgive.

It changes how we use power.

It changes how we treat strangers.

It changes how we respond to enemies.

It changes what we value.

And when Christ becomes King within us,

His Kingdom begins affecting everything around us.

The Kingdom Starts in My Heart

For me,

the Kingdom of God is no longer simply a destination on tomorrow's calendar.

It is where Christ becomes King of my heart today.

It is where His peace begins replacing my worry.

His wisdom begins replacing my confusion.

His love begins replacing my selfishness.

His patience begins replacing my irritation.

His forgiveness begins replacing my resentment.

And His will slowly becomes more precious than my own.

That is why I believe Jesus' words —

“God's Kingdom is within you”

are so important to Centering Prayer.

If God's Kingdom is within us,

and God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,

then we shouldn't spend our entire spiritual lives staring toward the horizon.

We should also look within our hearts and listen.

Centering Prayer Is Learning to Serve the King

From Genesis to Revelation —

I see one beautiful invitation woven throughout Scripture.

God desires to dwell with His people.

He calls us into a relationship.

He transforms us through His Spirit.

He gives us gifts with which to serve.

And He invites us to participate in His Kingdom.

Centering Prayer, as I understand it, is our response to that invitation.

We become still before Christ.

We listen with humility.

We discern.

We surrender our own will.

And then we joyfully follow wherever our King leads.

It is not merely a method of prayer.

It is learning to live every day serving King Jesus.

It is waking each morning and recognizing:

The King is here.

His Spirit is in our hearts.

His Kingdom is at hand.

And I have been given another day in which to serve Him.

So instead of spending all of my time asking:

“Lord, when will Your Kingdom come?”

I have learned to begin with another question:

“Lord Jesus... how may I serve You in Your Kingdom today?”

Then I become still.

I stop trying to run the Kingdom for Him.

I listen.

And when He leads...

I follow.

Chapter 7

How are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come?

What Kind of Body Will We Have After Death?

Paul’s Answer: From a Natural Body to a Spiritual Body.

You can almost feel Paul's urgency as you read

“ Corinthians 15.”

This is not a casual theological discussion over a cup of coffee.

Paul is passionate.

He is intense.

And he is trying very hard to help the Corinthians understand something that he believes is absolutely essential:

What happens after we die?

And:

With what kind of body are the dead raised?

Those are not small questions.

They are the kind of questions that can keep a person staring at the ceiling at two o'clock in the morning.

Paul devotes an entire chapter—

fifty-eight verses —

to answer them.

And at one point, when someone asks,

“How are the dead raised?”

and,

“With what kind of body do they come?”

Paul responds:

“You foolish one.”

Paul was not exactly sprinkling powdered sugar over the discussion.

He wanted his readers to wake up and pay attention.

But I think it is important to hear the heart behind his intensity.

Paul is not trying to humiliate sincere believers.

He is trying to move them beyond thinking only in terms of the physical body they can see,

touch,

measure,

feed,

dress,

exercise,

and occasionally complain about.

Paul wants them to understand that God's promise of eternal life is far greater than this present mortal body.

Paul Begins With a Seed

Paul uses one of the simplest things imaginable to explain resurrection:

a seed.

A seed is placed into the ground.

What comes out does not look exactly like what went in.

The seed changes.

It dies to one form,

and God gives it another.

Paul's point is beautiful:

resurrection is not merely putting the old thing back exactly as it was.

God brings transformation.

A kernel of wheat does not climb back out of the dirt,

dust itself off,

and announce:

“Good news. I have successfully remained a kernel.”

Something new grows.

That is the picture Paul gives us.

A butterfly is another example.

Its body form is a cocoon.

The cocoon splits open and degrades.

But a beautiful butterfly emerges, and joins a world that it could not see as a cocoon.

Natural Body and Spiritual Body

Then Paul makes one of the clearest statements in the entire chapter:

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

And then, almost as though he knows somebody in the back row still isn't convinced, he adds:

“There is a natural body, and there is also a spiritual body.”

Those words are enormously important to me.

Paul is telling us that our present bodily existence is not the final form of life God has prepared.

Our natural bodies are mortal.

They are perishable.

They weaken.

They age.

They return to dust.

And anyone who has lived long enough knows that the body occasionally sends reminders of this without being asked.

The knees make announcements.

The back files complaints.

The eyesight renegotiates the contract.

And sometimes we walk confidently into a room and realize that our brain apparently forgot to accompany us.

Our bodies are marvelous gifts from God.

But they are not permanent.

Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom

Then Paul reaches his great conclusion:

“Flesh and blood can't inherit God's Kingdom;

neither does the perishable inherit imperishable.”

I find those words breathtaking.

Paul does not say that our present mortal flesh simply becomes immortal by remaining exactly as it is.

He speaks of change.

Transformation at death.

The perishable becomes imperishable.

Mortality gives way to immortality.

Weakness gives way to power.

The natural body gives way to the spiritual body.

That is Paul's hope.

And Jesus gives us the center of that hope when He says:

“I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”

Our hope is not in the durability of flesh.

Our hope is in Christ.

Paul Is Not Teaching Us to Worship the Body

This is where I believe many Christians can benefit from reading “ Corinthians 15”slowly and prayerfully.

Paul is not asking us to make the physical body the center of our hope.

Quite the opposite.

He repeatedly reminds us that the present body is perishable.

It returns to dust.

It does not inherit the imperishable in its present condition.

Our hope rests in God's power over death.

Christ is the resurrection.

Christ is the life.

And Paul tells us that there is a spiritual body.

Our spirit bodies are immortal,

conquering death once and for all.

That means,

we should not live as though everything that is real

must be something our physical eyes can see or our hands can touch.

Scripture repeatedly invites us to understand a spiritual reality that is far greater than the visible world around us.

We Are More Than What We See in the Mirror

Paul says there is more to us than what we can see in the mirror.

That realization changed the way I began thinking about my relationship with God.

For much of my life, I trusted the physical world.

If I could see it,

hear it,

touch it,

measure it,

or test it,

I could believe it.

That is excellent training for a veterinarian.

It is considerably less useful when trying to fit the Creator of the universe onto an examination table.

Eventually I began understanding that Scripture speaks again and again about realities that are spiritual.

Paul says:

“There is a natural body, and there is also a spiritual body.”

And Galatians tells us:

“God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

For me,

those passages changed everything.

Christ was no longer simply someone who lived two thousand years ago.

Through the Holy Spirit,

He became someone I could seek,

listen to,

love,

and serve today.

This Is Where Centering Prayer Becomes Important

This is one reason Centering Prayer has become so precious to me.

Our natural minds are extremely busy.

They process everything around us.

Sounds.

Pain.

Schedules.

Bills.

Memories.

Fears.

Plans.

Imaginary conversations.

Actual conversations.

Conversations we wish we had handled differently fifteen years ago.

My mind is remarkably committed to recycling material.

If it isn't worrying,

it's planning.

If it isn't planning,

it's remembering.

If it isn't remembering,

it's preparing a speech for an argument that may never occur.

Sometimes I think the thoughts in my head have formed their own homeowners association.

They have meetings.

They have committees.

And apparently nobody has the authority to adjourn.

Then Centering Prayer gives me another option.

Become still. “Lord Jesus, May I Listen?”

Centering Prayer is not about forcing God to speak.

It is not about manufacturing supernatural experiences.

It is about becoming quiet enough to stop giving

our own thoughts the microphone,

every minute of the day.

I become still.

I quiet the noise.

I turn my attention toward Christ.

And I ask:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

That quietness matters because Scripture repeatedly shows that God's guidance is not always loud.

Elijah encountered wind,

earthquake,

and fire.

Yet God came to him in:

“a still small voice.”

Most of us would probably prefer divine guidance to arrive with flashing lights and a printed instruction sheet.

Preferably laminated.

God does not always work that way.

Sometimes listening requires stillness.

Our Bodies Protect Us — But They Also Demand Attention

Our physical bodies are designed to keep us alive.

That is a wonderful gift.

If a smoke alarm goes off in the middle of the night,

we don't pause to appreciate its musical qualities.

We move.

If we suddenly find ourselves standing ten feet away from a hungry lion,

we probably do not begin by asking:

“Lord, what spiritual lesson might this lion be bringing me?”

Our bodies react.

Fear rises.

Our heart rate increases.

Our muscles prepare to move.

And if we're wise,

we begin creating considerably more distance between ourselves and the lion.

Those survival instincts are gifts from God.

But fear,

noise,

hurry,

anger,

ego,

and endless distraction can also dominate our attention.

That is why peace and stillness are so important to Centering Prayer.

We become quiet enough to notice what fear and noise often bury.

Christ's Work in Us Begins Now

Paul's hope is not simply that something happens after death.

His teaching also changes the way we live before death.

Romans tells us:

“If by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Paul repeatedly calls believers to live according to the Spirit.

That means the spiritual life is not merely something waiting for us after the funeral.

It begins now.

As we surrender our own wills and learn to walk with Christ,

His Spirit begins transforming our spirits today.

Love becomes stronger than resentment.

Peace begins replacing anxiety.

Joy becomes deeper than circumstances.

Kindness becomes more natural.

Faith grows.

Gentleness grows.

Self-control grows.

Christ is not simply preparing us for eternal life.

He is teaching our spirit how to live with

the Holy Spirit, now.

How to listen and hear Him.

Discernment.

Obedience.

Service.

Resurrection Is Transformation

This is the word I keep hearing throughout “ Corinthians 15:”

Transformation at the death of our bodies.

Perishable...

to imperishable.

Weakness...

to power.

Natural...

to spiritual.

Mortal...

to immortal.

Paul is not telling frightened people merely to cling more tightly to the body they already possess.

He is directing their hope toward what God will do.

That should bring tremendous comfort.

We do not have to understand every mystery of resurrection.

We do not have to know the mechanics.

We do not need architectural drawings of heaven.

Paul himself calls it:

“a mystery.”

Our responsibility is to trust Christ.

Jesus said:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

That is enough for me.

Christians Can Disagree Without Becoming Enemies

Christians have understood some details of resurrection and Christ's future coming differently for many centuries.

Those disagreements are real.

And sincere Christians can read certain passages and arrive at different conclusions.

But I believe “ Corinthians 15”gives us common ground that is far more important than winning an argument.

Christ lives.

Death does not win.

The mortal body is not the final reality.

God transforms us.

There is a spiritual body.

Flesh and blood, in their present perishable condition, cannot inherit God's Kingdom.

Those are Paul's words.

So rather than using resurrection to divide Christians,

perhaps we can allow Paul's message to draw us toward the same hope:

Jesus Christ.

Don't Miss Jesus Today While Thinking About Tomorrow

This is the part that matters deeply to Centering Prayer.

Whatever we believe about the exact details of resurrection,

we should never allow our expectations about tomorrow to prevent us from knowing Jesus today.

Paul tells us there is a spiritual body.

Scripture tells us that the Spirit of God's Son has been placed into our hearts.

Jesus tells us He is the resurrection and the life.

So I do not want to spend my present life merely waiting for Christ while ignoring the relationship He is offering me now.

I want to know Him now.

Love Him now.

Listen to Him now.

Serve Him now.

Follow Him now.

Because eternal life is not merely an interesting subject for theological debate.

It is life with Christ today.

Little by Little, He Changes Us

Every morning I become still before Jesus.

I ask:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

Little by little,

Christ reshapes my heart.

Little by little,

He teaches me to love unconditionally.

Little by little,

He makes His priorities more important than mine.

Little by little,

the things I once believed were essential become less important.

And the things of the Spirit become more precious.

That transformation doesn't make me perfect.

If anyone is waiting for that announcement,

please don't hold your breath.

But I am not the same person I once was.

And I give God the credit.

Death Does Not Get the Final Word

Paul ends “ Corinthians 15” with an explosion of hope:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Then:

“Death, where is your sting?”

Paul is almost taunting death.

Why?

Because Christ has won.

The body may weaken.

The body may age.

The body may return to dust.

But death does not own those who belong to Christ.

That is why Paul finishes the chapter by telling believers to remain:

steadfast,

immovable,

and always devoted to the Lord's work.

Because:

our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Every act of love matters.

Every act of forgiveness matters.

Every quiet act of obedience matters.

Every moment spent listening for Christ's direction matters.

Every time we surrender our will and say,

“Yes, Lord,”

matters.

Nothing offered to Christ in love is wasted.

Our natural bodies belong to this present life.

They are wonderful,

fragile,

temporary gifts.

But Paul tells us:

“There is a natural body, and there is also a spiritual body.”

And Jesus tells us:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

My hope is not ultimately in what happens to dust.

My hope is in Jesus Christ.

And instead of spending today worrying about exactly how God will accomplish tomorrow's resurrection,

I would rather spend today knowing,

loving,

listening to,

and serving the One who is the Resurrection.

So tomorrow morning,

I will become still.

I will quiet the neighborhood association inside my head.

I will turn my heart toward Jesus.

And I will ask:

“Lord Jesus... how may I serve You today?”

Then I will listen.

Because whatever mysteries await us beyond death,

I already know the One I want to follow there.

Our bodies may return to dust.

But God's work, in those who belong to Him, is preparing us for something that dust could never contain.

Chapter 8

The Greek Word for God's Unconditional Love is Agapē

Agapē: The Love God Pours Into Our Hearts

Receive It. Live It. Give It Away.

If there is one little Greek word that has completely changed the way I understand God,

it is:

agapē.

It is a tiny word...

with an enormous heart.

The New Testament uses agapē to describe the extraordinary, unconditional, love that comes from God.

Not a love that must be purchased.

Not a love that has to be earned.

Not a love that disappears the moment we disappoint Him.

God's love does not arrive with an expiration date,

a performance review,

hidden fees,

or a receipt that says:

“Returns accepted within thirty days.”

God loves us because love is part of who God is.

John says it about as clearly as words can say it:

“God is love.”

And then Scripture tells us something even more remarkable.

God doesn't merely show us His love from a distance.

He pours it into our hearts.

Romans says:

“God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Think about that.

God doesn't hand us a teaspoon of love and say,

“Try to make this last.”

He pours it into us.

God Is the Source of Agapē

The first great truth about agapē is wonderfully simple:

Love — agapē — begins with God.

First John tells us:

“Love comes from God.”

Then:

“God is love.”

That means love is not simply one of God's many hobbies.

God doesn't occasionally remember to be loving when His schedule allows.

Love flows from His very nature.

Deuteronomy describes Him as the faithful God,

keeping His covenant of love across generations.

His love is faithful.

Steady.

Patient.

Merciful.

And far bigger than anything we could manufacture for ourselves.

Human love can be wonderful,

but human love can also become surprisingly complicated.

Sometimes we love because somebody loves us.

Sometimes because someone is kind to us.

Sometimes because they agree with us.

Sometimes because they remembered our birthday.

Then they forget the birthday,

leave the dirty dishes in the sink,

park in our favorite spot,

or cheer enthusiastically for the wrong football team...

and suddenly the terms and conditions of the relationship appear to require renegotiation.

God's agapē is different.

He does not wake up one morning and announce:

“I've reviewed your recent performance and have decided to love somebody else.”

His love remains.

Grace Means We Can Come Home

That truth has brought enormous comfort to my own life.

Like everyone else,

I can look backward and see failures.

Mistakes.

Sins.

Bad decisions.

Times when I chose my own will instead of God's.

For many years,

those memories made it difficult for me to believe that God could truly forgive me.

Surely there had to be some limit.

Surely I had exceeded the heavenly warranty.

But that is what grace taught me.

God's mercy is greater than my past.

Grace continually says:

“Come home.”

God does not wait until we become perfect before loving us.

If He did,

heaven would have a terribly small mailing list.

Instead,

His love reaches us where we are

and begins transforming who we become.

Love God With Everything

Jesus reminds us that the great commandments of Scripture can be gathered into something beautifully simple.

Love God with:

all your heart,

all your soul,

all your strength,

and:

all your mind.

Then:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

In Luke 10,

when the expert in the Law gives that answer,

Jesus tells him:

“You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

Those words are enormously important.

"Do this and you will have eternal life."

Jesus doesn't merely ask us to possess correct information about love.

He says:

Do it.

Live it.

Give it away.

Make love visible.

That means agapē must eventually leave the dictionary.

It has to get up,

put on its shoes,

and walk into somebody else's life.

Jesus Raises the Standard

Then Jesus takes love even further.

He tells His disciples:

“As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.”

And elsewhere He commands:

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

That is an astonishing standard.

Jesus isn't saying:

“Love people as long as they're pleasant.”

Or:

“Love people until they become inconvenient.”

Or:

“Love people provided they agree with you on every important subject.”

He says:

Love as I have loved you.

That is agapē.

Self-giving love.

Patient love.

Forgiving love.

Love that seeks the good of another person.

And thankfully,

God does not simply hand us that command and then stand back saying:

“Good luck with that.”

Romans tells us that His love is

poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

The love originates with God.

The Holy Spirit brings that love into our hearts.

And then we are called to let that love flow outward toward other people.

We Are Not the Factory

This is very important to my understanding of Centering Prayer.

I don't believe we manufacture agapē through sheer willpower.

I am not the factory.

God is the source.

The Holy Spirit pours God's love into us.

Our job is to stop blocking the pipeline.

Sometimes pride blocks it.

Sometimes anger blocks it.

Sometimes resentment blocks it.

Sometimes fear blocks it.

And occasionally an argument from eleven years ago is still sitting there with its arms crossed insisting that it has no intention of moving.

Centering Prayer helps me surrender those things to God.

I become still before Him.

I listen.

I allow Him to correct me.

And little by little,

He teaches me to love.

“How May I Serve You Today?”

Every morning I become quiet before the Lord and ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

Not because I'm trying to unlock secret information.

Not because I'm trying to solve a heavenly riddle.

And not because I think God has misplaced His daily planner and needs my assistance organizing the universe.

I am spending time with Someone I love.

Friendships grow through communication.

Families grow through communication.

Marriages grow through communication.

It should not surprise us that our friendship with God grows through communication too.

And friendship requires something many of us find surprisingly difficult:

Listening.

My Mind Has Other Plans

I've discovered that one of the greatest obstacles to listening isn't God's unwillingness to communicate.

It is my remarkable ability to fill every quiet moment myself.

My thoughts can travel through tomorrow's schedule,

yesterday's mistake,

today's chores,

next year's taxes,

the car needing gasoline,

something foolish I said to my wife,

and the guilt that I missed church last Sunday...

all before my feet touch the floor.

My mind has an astonishing travel budget.

If my imagination ever opens a travel agency,

I am convinced it will specialize in:

Round-trip tickets to everywhere at once.

Centering Prayer is my daily invitation to cancel a few of those reservations.

I become still.

The noise begins settling.

My heart becomes attentive.

Not perfect.

Just attentive.

The Spirit of Truth Leads Us

Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is:

“the Spirit of truth.”

He says the Spirit will guide us into truth.

That matters tremendously.

If we believe we are being led by God,

the direction should increasingly resemble God.

Truth.

Love.

Mercy.

Humility.

Forgiveness.

Peace.

Service.

The Holy Spirit is not going to pour God's agapē into our hearts on Monday

and then teach us hatred on Tuesday.

God's character doesn't change with the weather.

This gives us one of the great tests of spiritual discernment:

Does what I believe I am hearing lead me toward God's love?

Does it help me love God more?

Does it help me love His children more?

Does it make me more forgiving?

More patient?

More gentle?

More willing to serve?

If not,

I need to stop and listen more carefully.

Obedience Is Love in Motion

Little by little,

I have learned that obedience is not merely following orders.

Obedience can become an expression of love.

Jesus says:

“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in My love.”

That doesn't mean we're purchasing God's love with good behavior.

God's love came first.

We obey because we are learning to trust the One who loves us.

When God puts it on my heart to encourage someone,

I try to do it.

When He leads me toward forgiveness,

I try to forgive.

When I believe He is telling me to help someone,

I try to help.

And when I strongly believe He is telling me:

“Bill, you don't need to say what you're currently preparing to say...”

I am slowly learning that this also qualifies as divine assistance.

Sometimes unconditional love has remarkably good timing.

Agapē Changes the Person

Carrying It

The more we experience God's love,

the more that love begins changing us.

Bitterness starts losing its grip.

Resentment becomes harder to justify.

Our need to win every argument begins weakening.

Forgiveness becomes possible.

Compassion grows.

And gradually,

the people around us begin encountering something more than our personality.

They begin encountering the fruit of God's work within us.

That's important because God's love was never intended to stop inside us.

A reservoir that never releases water eventually becomes stagnant.

God pours agapē into our hearts so that we can pour it into the lives of others.

Receive it.

Live it.

Give it away.

Then receive more.

Made to Reflect God's Love

Scripture tells us that humanity was created in the image of God.

And Scripture tells us:

“God is love.”

That gives me a beautiful way of thinking about what God is doing within us.

As the Holy Spirit transforms us,

we increasingly reflect God's character.

We become more loving.

More patient.

More merciful.

More forgiving.

More generous.

More gentle.

In that sense,

God's agapē begins shining through an ordinary human life.

Not because we have become God.

But because the God who is love is transforming His children into people who increasingly look like His love.

That is beautiful to me.

You Will Know Them by Their Love

Jesus told His followers that people would recognize His disciples by their love for one another.

Think about what that means.

He didn't say the great identifying mark would be:

the largest building,

the loudest preacher,

the most impressive sign,

the longest theological vocabulary,

or the ability to win every argument on the Internet.

He pointed toward:

love.

Agapē.

People should be able to encounter Christ's disciples

and experience something different.

Grace.

Kindness.

Patience.

Mercy.

Peace.

A willingness to forgive.

A willingness to serve.

A love that doesn't constantly ask:

“What am I getting in return?”

That kind of love becomes evidence that God is at work within us.

Knowing God Changes Love

First John says something extraordinary:

“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

That connects love with knowing God.

For me,

that is another reason Centering Prayer matters.

We cannot build a friendship with someone we never take time to know.

And we cannot listen to someone while we are doing all the talking.

So I become quiet.

I ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

As I listen,

I learn to trust.

As I trust,

I become more willing to obey.

As I obey,

I experience more of God's work within my life.

And as His agapē fills my heart,

I have more love to give away.

The Love That Never Walks Away

That is what I have discovered about agapē.

It begins with God.

God is love.

It is poured into our hearts.

Through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells us to remain in it.

Remain in My love.

Then He commands us to share it.

Love one another as I have loved you.

And He tells us to love God with everything we have

and love our neighbors as ourselves.

For me,

Centering Prayer is not simply sitting quietly.

It is learning to know the One who first loved me.

It is becoming still enough to experience His presence.

It is listening for His direction.

It is obeying because I trust Him.

And it is allowing His unconditional love to flow through me toward His other children.

The more I know God,

the more deeply I love Him.

The more deeply I experience His love,

the more difficult it becomes to keep that love to myself.

And perhaps that is exactly how God designed agapē.

It was never supposed to stop with us.

It enters our hearts...

changes us...

and then spills over.

So tomorrow morning,

I will once again become still before Jesus.

I will quiet the noise.

I will open my heart.

And I will ask:

“Lord Jesus... how may I share Your love today?”

Then I will listen.

Because the God who is love

has already poured His agapē into our hearts.

Our calling now is beautifully simple:

Receive it.

Live it.

And give it away.

Chapter 9

Spirit in the Clouds

The Cloud That Helps Us See the Unseen

A Biblical Picture of God’s Presence, Christ’s Kingdom, and the Spirit World Around Us

One of the discoveries that filled me with childlike excitement

was noticing how often God chose to reveal His presence through a cloud.

Once I saw it,

I couldn't stop seeing it.

There it was with Moses on Mount Sinai.

There it was leading Israel through the wilderness.

There it was standing at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting while God spoke with Moses.

There it was at the Transfiguration,

overshadowing the disciples while the Father's voice declared:

“This is my beloved Son... Listen to him.”

Then I kept reading.

Jesus spoke of the Son of Man:

“coming in the clouds of heaven.”

Paul wrote about believers meeting the Lord:

“in the clouds.”

Again and again,

the image appears.

Clouds.

God's presence.

God speaking.

God leading.

Christ coming in glory.

For me,

that became a beautiful thread running throughout Scripture.

God Is Not Literally a Cloud

Let me make something clear right away.

I do not believe God is literally a cloud.

A thunderstorm passing over my house is not God relocating to the neighborhood.

The cloud is a metaphor —

a picture that helps my physical mind imagine something spiritual that my physical eyes cannot normally see.

And for someone like me,

that has been enormously helpful.

I have always been a visual thinker.

Words are useful.

Pictures stay with me.

For most of my life, I had an old habit of thinking:

“If I can't see it, it ain't real.”

That attitude works fairly well when you're looking for your car keys.

It becomes considerably less useful when you're trying to understand the eternal God.

The cloud gave my imagination a bridge.

Why a Cloud Makes Sense to Me

Think about a cloud.

You can see it.

But you cannot grab it.

You cannot put it in a box.

You cannot nail it to the ground.

It moves.

It changes shape.

It can surround you.

It can hide something from your sight.

It can appear enormous,

yet you can pass directly through it.

For me,

that makes the cloud a beautiful visual metaphor for the spiritual reality Scripture describes.

Not because spirits are clouds.

But because clouds help my earthly mind picture something that is present without being solid,

something that moves without legs,

and something that can surround us without our being able to hold it in our hands.

That changed the way I began imagining the spiritual world.

God Used the Cloud Again and Again

In Exodus,

God told Moses:

“Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee.”

Notice what happens.

The cloud is associated with:

God's presence.

And:

God speaking.

Then Israel travels through the wilderness.

Scripture says:

“The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way.”

Again,

the cloud represents God's presence.

But now there is another important element:

God is leading His people.

That sounds very familiar to me.

Centering Prayer is about listening to God's Spirit

and allowing Him to lead.

The ancient Israelites followed the cloud.

Today,

I seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit whom Scripture tells us God has placed within our hearts.

Different picture.

Same great desire:

Follow God.

The Cloud Comes to Moses' Tent

Then we find another remarkable scene.

Moses enters the Tent of Meeting.

The pillar of cloud comes down

and remains at the entrance.

And Scripture says:

“the Lord spoke with Moses.”

That passage means a great deal to me.

Moses didn't simply believe that God existed somewhere far away.

He developed a relationship with God.

God spoke.

Moses listened.

Moses responded.

And Moses served.

That pattern appears again and again throughout Scripture.

God speaks.

His people listen.

They obey.

God leads.

That is the pattern I recognize in Centering Prayer.

“Listen to Him”

Then we come to the Transfiguration.

A bright cloud overshadows Jesus and His disciples.

And from the cloud comes the Father's command:

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

I cannot read those words without stopping.

This is a direct commandment by God to every one of us.

"Listen to Him."

Not merely:

study Him.

Admire Him.

Build buildings in His name.

Argue endlessly about Him.

The Father says:

“Listen to Him.”

Those three words could almost serve as the entire instruction manual for Centering Prayer.

We become still.

We turn toward Jesus.

And:

we listen to Him.

My Childhood Picture of God

As a little boy growing up in Catholic school,

I had a very different picture of God.

Like many children,

I imagined God as an elderly gentleman with an enormous gray beard sitting somewhere above the highest clouds.

I spent a surprising amount of time looking upward,

half expecting to catch Him peeking over the edge.

I never found Him.

Mostly I found clouds.

Occasionally an airplane.

And once in a while a bird that seemed completely uninterested in answering my theological questions.

As I grew older,

I began reading Jesus' words more seriously:

“God is Spirit.”

That changed my picture completely.

God is not simply an earthbound human being who happens to live at a higher altitude.

God is Spirit.

He is not confined by walls.

He is not confined by continents.

He is not confined by time.

He is not restricted by the physical limitations that control our bodies.

And suddenly,

the biblical cloud made much more sense to me as an image.

Learning to Picture the Invisible

I think visually.

That is simply how my mind works.

If I can picture something,

I can begin thinking about it in a completely different way.

There is a saying often attributed to Henry Ford:

“If I can see it in my mind, I can build it.”

Whether or not those were Ford's exact words,

the idea describes me remarkably well.

If I can picture something,

I can begin understanding it.

So when Scripture describes an enormous heavenly realm,

I need some way to visualize it.

Daniel describes:

“ten thousand times ten thousand”

standing before God.

John gives us similarly enormous imagery in Revelation—

thousands upon thousands,

and ten thousand times ten thousand around God's throne.

That is an almost unimaginable number.

One hundred million.

My mind has difficulty visualizing one hundred million anything.

I can barely picture where I put one pair of reading glasses.

So I use the cloud as a mental picture.

Not because Scripture says that all spirits look like clouds.

It doesn't.

But because the cloud helps me imagine the enormous unseen spiritual reality Scripture describes.

Imagine the Heavens Filled With Life

When I picture those countless heavenly beings,

I sometimes imagine the sky filled with cloud-like spiritual forms that are near the ground and moving.

Thousands.

Millions.

An enormous Kingdom beyond what my physical eyes can see.

Revelation describes the armies of heaven following Christ.

That imagery helps me understand something central to my faith:

the spiritual world is not empty.

God's Kingdom is not a deserted palace waiting for someone to arrive.

Scripture gives us images of tremendous spiritual life,

activity,

worship,

service,

and power.

For seventy years, I largely lived as if the visible world was the only world that mattered.

Work.

Money.

Appointments.

Bills.

Possessions.

Problems.

Everything had to fit inside the world my eyes could see.

Then Scripture gradually opened another window.

Christ's Kingdom Is Nearer Than I Thought

As I studied Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom,

I became especially interested in His urgency.

Jesus repeatedly proclaimed:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

He told His disciples, that some standing with Him, would not taste death, before seeing the Kingdom come with power.

And in Luke,

Jesus says:

“God's Kingdom is within you.”

For me,

these passages transformed the Kingdom from something I only imagined in the distant future

into a spiritual reality that I believe Christ calls us to recognize and serve now.

His Kingdom is not merely somewhere beyond the stars.

Christ is present through the Holy Spirit.

And Galatians tells us that:

God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

That is incredibly personal.

The King is not distant.

His Spirit is within us.

Stop Looking Only at the Horizon

This understanding has profoundly shaped the way I approach Centering Prayer.

If God is Spirit,

and if His presence is not confined to one building,

one mountain,

one country,

or one physical location,

then every quiet morning becomes an opportunity to turn my heart toward Him.

I don't have to climb Mount Sinai waiting for a cloud to descend.

Which is fortunate,

because at my age,

God would probably have to send somebody down the mountain to get me.

I don't have to stare into the sky hoping to catch heaven becoming visible.

I don't have to wait for thunder.

I don't need fireworks.

I don't need a booming voice.

I become still.

I turn toward the Holy Spirit.

And I ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

The Cloud Is Not the Power

The cloud itself has no magical power.

Centering Prayer is not about clouds.

It is not about imagination for imagination's sake.

And it is certainly not about turning weather forecasting into theology.

The cloud is simply a picture in my mind.

A metaphor.

A visual doorway that helps me think about the spiritual reality Scripture describes.

The power belongs to God.

The guidance comes through the Holy Spirit.

Christ is the King.

Our responsibility is to listen,

discern,

trust,

and serve.

Reading Scripture With Spiritual Eyes

Once I began picturing the spiritual world,

many passages in Scripture began opening differently for me.

When I read about God appearing in a cloud,

I no longer pictured a human God hiding behind the weather.

I pictured an invisible God graciously giving human beings something visible enough to help them understand His presence.

When I read about heavenly hosts,

I began imagining an enormous spiritual Kingdom alive, and moving, around God's throne.

When I read about Christ coming with the clouds,

I began thinking about the majesty and spiritual reality of His Kingdom.

And when I read that God placed the Spirit of His Son within our hearts,

the Kingdom became intensely personal.

The spiritual world was no longer merely something out there.

God's Spirit was calling me from within.

Centering Prayer Makes the Invisible Personal

This is where Centering Prayer becomes so important to me.

I cannot normally see the Holy Spirit with my physical eyes.

I cannot normally hear Him with my physical ears.

But Scripture repeatedly tells us to listen,

to discern,

to walk by the Spirit,

and to follow God's leading.

So I become still.

I quiet the squirrels in the attic.

I surrender my own agenda.

And I ask:

“Lord Jesus, what would You have me do?”

Then I pay attention.

Not because silence is magical.

Not because my imagination is automatically divine.

But because I want to give God my full attention.

And anything I believe I receive must still be discerned through:

the truth,

the love,

the character,

and the teachings of Christ.

God Is Closer Than We Think

Every time I look at clouds now,

they remind me of something far greater than themselves.

They remind me that there is more to reality than what my physical eyes can see.

They remind me of Moses.

They remind me of Israel following God's presence through the wilderness.

They remind me of the Transfiguration.

They remind me of the Father's command:

“Listen to Him.”

They remind me of Christ's Kingdom.

And they remind me that God's Spirit is much closer than I once believed.

Sometimes I imagine those clouds quietly whispering:

“Bill... stop looking so far away.”

“The God you're searching for is closer than you think.”

The Greatest Picture Is Inside the Heart

For me,

the cloud became a way of picturing the invisible.

But eventually,

even the cloud points beyond itself.

Because the most important place Scripture tells me to look is not the sky.

It is look in my heart.

God has sent:

“the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

That is why Centering Prayer matters so much to me.

I don't have to spend my life waiting for heaven to become visible before I begin serving Christ.

I can serve Him today.

I can listen today.

I can love today.

I can forgive today.

I can bear fruit today.

I can live under Christ's loving authority today.

The cloud simply helped my visual mind understand what Scripture had been telling me all along:

The visible world is not all there is.

God is a Spirit.

Christ is a Spirit, a friend, and a King.

His Kingdom is alive.

His Spirit is within our hearts.

And every morning,

the invitation remains the same:

“Listen to Him.”

So I become still.

I quiet my thoughts.

I turn my heart toward Jesus.

And I ask:

“Lord Jesus... how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

And whenever I look up and see a cloud drifting across the sky,

I smile.

Not because I think the cloud is God.

But because it reminds me that the God I cannot see

is much closer than I ever imagined.

Chapter 10

Listen, Obey, Serve

I Finally Stopped Talking Long Enough to Listen

How Centering Prayer Turned God From a Question Into a Relationship

There is a command running through the Bible that I somehow managed to overlook for most of my life:

Serve God.

It is there again and again.

God, through Moses, told the Pharaoh:

“Let my people go, that they may serve me.”

Deuteronomy tells us to love God

and:

“serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Joshua repeats it.

Jesus declares:

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve Him only.”

And Paul brings it directly to Christians:

“It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Once I finally noticed this theme,

I wondered how I had managed to walk past it for so many years without seeing it.

It was a little like discovering that the giant sign on the front door had been there the entire time.

Then came the question that changed everything for me:

How can I serve God if I never listen to Him?

I Did All the Talking

For most of my life,

prayer meant talking to God.

I could ask God for help.

Thank Him.

Praise Him.

Confess my sins.

And present Him with a surprisingly well-organized list of things that I thought required His immediate attention.

I was very efficient.

I could probably have issued God a numbered agenda.

But eventually I realized something rather embarrassing:

I was doing nearly all the talking.

That is a peculiar way to build a relationship.

Imagine calling your best friend every morning,

talking for twenty minutes without stopping,

giving them your complete list of problems,

telling them exactly what you think should happen,

saying goodbye,

and hanging up before they can answer.

Then the next day,

you call again and wonder why the friendship isn't getting any deeper.

That was my prayer life.

I talked.

God listened.

And apparently I had decided that was a perfectly reasonable division of labor.

Centering Prayer Turned the Conversation Around

Centering Prayer changed that relationship for me.

Instead of beginning my day by telling God what I wanted Him to do,

I began asking:

“Lord, what would You have me do today?”

Then came the difficult part.

I had to stop talking long enough to listen.

That was much harder than it sounds.

Silence can feel strangely uncomfortable,

when you've spent a lifetime believing,

that every empty second requires a new thought.

But little by little,

I learned to become still.

I learned to wait.

I learned to pay attention.

And prayer began changing from a speech

into a relationship.

My Scientific Mind Wanted Evidence

This wasn't easy for me.

I had spent forty years practicing veterinary medicine.

Medicine trained me to question everything.

Show me the evidence.

Show me the study.

Show me the control group.

Show me the mechanism.

If something couldn't be observed,

measured,

tested,

or demonstrated,

my professionally trained mind immediately reached for a large rubber stamp marked:

UNPROVEN.

That skepticism served me very well as a veterinarian.

Patients deserve treatments based on evidence,

not somebody's enthusiastic hunch.

If a bottle claimed to cure everything from arthritis to baldness to a bad golf swing,

I wanted considerably more than a smiling testimonial.

But eventually I realized that I had carried the laboratory into places where laboratory instruments could never answer every question.

I Wasn't an Atheist

I wasn't an atheist.

I wasn't declaring that God did not exist.

I was an agnostic.

My position was essentially:

“I don't know.”

I couldn't see God.

I couldn't touch God.

I couldn't hear God.

And nobody had handed me a peer-reviewed,

double-blind clinical trial titled:

The Existence of God: A Multicenter Randomized Study With 10,000 Participants.

So I remained unconvinced.

My scientific mind wanted data.

God apparently wanted a relationship.

For a long time,

those two were not on speaking terms.

How Do You Serve Someone You Never Hear?

There was an even bigger problem.

I didn't understand that serving God was supposed to be central to my life.

I had attended church.

I had received religious instruction.

I had heard many Bible stories.

Yet somehow this enormous biblical theme had never become personal to me.

Scripture said:

“Serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Jesus said:

serve God alone.

Paul said:

“It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

But I kept returning to the same practical question:

How am I supposed to serve Someone I don't know how to hear?

That question eventually led me directly to Centering Prayer.

“God, How May I Serve You Today?”

I began setting aside quiet time every morning.

And I asked one simple question:

“God, how may I serve You today?”

Instead of immediately filling the silence with my own thoughts,

I tried to become still.

I paid attention to convictions,

thoughts,

impressions,

and callings that arose in my heart.

But I also learned that listening requires discernment.

Every thought that enters my mind is not automatically a message from God.

My mind is perfectly capable of producing original material without divine assistance.

So I began testing what I believed I was receiving.

Does it agree with the teachings of Jesus?

Does it lead toward love?

Truth?

Mercy?

Humility?

Forgiveness?

Service?

Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit?

Then came the most important part.

When I prayerfully believed God was calling me to do something consistent with His love and truth,

I tried to obey.

Trust Doesn't Come in a Fifty-Pound Bag

At first,

I had very little trust.

But trust is an interesting thing.

You cannot order a fifty-pound bag of it

and have it delivered to your front porch.

There is no overnight shipping.

No tracking number.

No message saying:

“Your trust is eight stops away.”

Trust grows through relationship.

Through communication.

Through experience.

Through obedience.

Day by day,

as I acted upon what I prayerfully believed God was placing upon my heart,

my relationship with Him changed.

What had once been an intellectual question—

“Does God exist?”

gradually became something deeply personal:

“God, what are we doing today?”

And something else began changing.

Me.

The Fruit Started Becoming Real

Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit as:

love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self-control.

For many years,

those were simply beautiful words in the Bible.

Then they began becoming personal.

I found more peace.

More joy.

More patience.

More love.

Especially,

I began experiencing a love for God and for other people that I had never understood before.

The fruit of the Spirit stopped being a vocabulary list.

It began becoming the evidence of God's work within me.

Not because I had suddenly become perfect.

Let's not get carried away.

But something was changing.

And I knew I wasn't doing it alone.

The Gifts Are for Service

Scripture also tells us that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts for:

“the common good.”

Paul speaks of wisdom,

knowledge,

faith,

healing,

miraculous works,

prophecy,

discernment of spirits,

tongues,

and interpretation.

These are not trophies for spiritual achievement.

They are not medals God pins onto somebody's chest because they reached Platinum-Level Christianity.

They are gifts.

And Scripture says the Spirit distributes them:

“just as He determines.”

That distinction matters enormously.

Their purpose is not to make us look important.

Their purpose is to equip us to serve.

Centering Prayer, for me,

is not about becoming spiritually impressive.

It is about becoming:

spiritually available.

“Here I Am, Lord”

My prayer gradually became:

“Here I am, Lord.”

“What would You have me do?”

Acts gives us another remarkable piece of this picture:

“The Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

Obedience and relationship belong together.

The more I learned to trust God,

the more willing I became to obey Him.

And the more I obeyed,

the more deeply I learned to trust Him.

Trust led to obedience.

Obedience deepened trust.

And somewhere along the way,

God stopped being merely a subject I was investigating

and became Someone I loved.

Knowing About Jesus Is Not the Same as Knowing Jesus

This also changed how I understand what it means to know God.

Knowing God is much more than knowing information about God.

I can read a biography of Abraham Lincoln.

I can learn where he was born.

What offices he held.

What speeches he gave.

What he believed.

I could probably become very annoying at a Lincoln trivia night.

But Abraham Lincoln and I are not friends.

Why?

Because friendship requires more than information.

It requires:

communication,

trust,

time,

relationship,

and love.

That realization made Jesus' warning in Matthew 7 deeply important to me.

Jesus describes that there are people who call Him:

“Lord, Lord,”

and even point to remarkable works done in His name.

Yet Jesus says:

“I never knew you.”

Those words stopped me cold.

The question is not merely:

“Do I know about Jesus?”

The deeper question is:

“Am I actually living in a relationship with Him?”

Friendship Requires Listening

For me,

that relationship begins every morning before I even get out of bed.

I become quiet.

I listen.

I ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I try to obey.

That simple practice has transformed my understanding of God.

The God I once wasn't sure existed

became the God I now seek every morning.

The Holy Spirit I once understood mainly as a theological concept

became central to how I understand my daily walk with Christ.

And serving God stopped feeling like an abstract religious obligation.

It became an adventure.

A new one every morning.

God, and the Holy Spirit, became the very best companions I have ever known.

And unlike some traveling companions,

they never ask every twenty minutes:

“Are we there yet?”

Sometimes the Assignment Is This Book

Some mornings,

that adventure has led me right back to this book.

I believe I was called to create the “Jesus, I’m Listening”book,

and to keep writing these chapters,

one subject at a time.

So I write.

Not because I believe I have mastered God.

Quite the opposite.

I have finally learned that my life becomes richer when I stop insisting on mastering everything and become willing to listen,

obey,

and serve.

I believe God has helped guide the subjects I study and the thoughts I explore.

Sometimes an article begins as only a small idea.

Then I pray.

I search Scripture.

I compare passage after passage.

And suddenly the words begin flowing.

What began as a trickle becomes a river.

And I find myself learning while I write,

and again learning when I format and edit what I've written.

Sometimes I find myself astonished by what was written here. And I find myself asking,

"Who really wrote this?"

From “Does God Exist?”to “What Are We Doing Today?”

That may be the greatest change of all.

For most of my life,

I asked:

“Is God real?”

Today,

I begin with an entirely different question:

“God, what are we doing today?”

That is a remarkable distance to travel.

And I didn't travel it by becoming smarter.

I traveled it by becoming willing to listen.

For most of my life,

I believed prayer was primarily about getting God's attention.

Centering Prayer taught me something very different:

God already had my attention.

I was the one who needed to pay attention to God.

Chapter 11

What Does God’s Voice Sound Like?

What If God Has Been Speaking

and We’ve Been Listening the Wrong Way?

Learning to Hear Jesus With the Heart

For most of my life,

I had one enormous problem with all the Bible stories where God talked to people:

God never talked to me like that.

Moses heard God.

Joshua heard God.

Samuel heard God calling his name.

Saul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus.

And me?

Nothing.

No thunder.

No booming voice rolling down from heaven.

No heavenly public-address system announcing:

“BILL BLEDSOE, HERE ARE TODAY’S INSTRUCTIONS.”

Not even a polite little reminder from a cloud.

And I can confidently report that no donkey has ever spoken to me either.

Although after reading Numbers 22,

I suppose I should leave that possibility open.

Why Was God Talking to Them — but Not to Me?

That question bothered me for years.

If God talked to people in the Bible,

why wasn't He talking to me?

Was God silent?

Was He ignoring me?

Had I done something that permanently separated me from Him?

Or —

and this was the uncomfortable possibility that followed me for years —

was I waiting to hear from Someone who wasn't really there?

I had unknowingly created a test for God:

“God, if You are real, I should be able to hear You with my ears and see You with my eyes.”

The problem was,

God had never agreed to my test.

I was grading Him according to rules I had written myself.

And apparently,

the Creator of the universe had neglected to ask for a copy.

Samuel Heard Something Eli Didn’t

Look carefully at Samuel's story.

Samuel heard God calling:

“Samuel.”

So Samuel ran to Eli.

But Eli hadn't called him.

Samuel heard something that the man lying nearby did not.

That is fascinating.

God's communication with Samuel was personal.

Samuel had to learn what he was hearing.

At first,

he didn't recognize God's voice either.

That gives me tremendous encouragement.

Even Samuel —

one of the great prophets of Scripture—

needed help learning to listen.

So if we don't understand everything immediately,

we're in pretty good company.

Saul Heard Jesus and Asked the Perfect Question —

Then there is Saul on the road to Damascus.

A light shines around him.

He falls to the ground.

And he hears:

“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

Saul asks:

“Who art thou, Lord?”

Jesus answers:

“I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”

And then Saul asks what may be one of the greatest Centering Prayer questions in the entire Bible:

“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

There it is.

Saul does not say:

“Lord, here are the seventeen things I would like You to do for me today.”

He asks:

“What do You want me to do?”

That question changed Saul's life.

And eventually,

it changed mine.

Moses Had to Listen Before He Could Serve

God spoke to Moses and told him to return to Egypt.

God gave him instructions.

Moses listened.

Then Moses acted.

Joshua heard God's direction.

Samuel heard God's call.

Saul heard Jesus.

Again and again,

the pattern in Scripture is remarkably simple:

God speaks.

His children listen.

The children obey.

God works through them.

For me,

that pattern is at the heart of Centering Prayer.

We cannot obey instructions we never hear.

And we cannot hear if we never listen.

Jesus Taught Us to Pray in Secret

Matthew 6 became enormously important to me because Jesus gives very practical instructions about prayer.

He tells us:

“Seek first His kingdom.”

He says:

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”

Then He warns us not to keep:

“babbling”

with endless words.

And Jesus gives us the reason:

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

Think about that.

God already knows.

He knows what I need.

He knows what I'm afraid of.

He knows what happened yesterday.

He knows what I need tomorrow.

He even knows what I was going to ask before I got halfway through explaining it.

That raises a question:

If God already knows everything I need, why am I doing all the talking?

For most of my life,

my prayers occasionally resembled a management meeting,

where I briefed God on situations He had apparently overlooked.

Looking back,

I admire His patience.

Maybe Prayer Includes Listening

Jesus also tells us:

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.”

He tells us not to spend our lives consumed with worry.

He tells us not to make earthly treasure the center of our hearts.

And He teaches us to pray:

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Notice whose will Jesus tells us to seek.

Not mine.

God's.

That means prayer cannot merely be about persuading God to do my will.

Prayer must also involve discovering His.

And how can I discover God's will

if I never stop talking long enough to listen?

I Was Listening With the Wrong Equipment

Eventually,

I began wondering whether the problem wasn't God's silence.

Perhaps I had been listening with the wrong equipment.

Paul gives us an extraordinary statement in Galatians 4:6:

“God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

That verse changed everything for me.

Instead of continually asking:

“Why can't my ears hear God?”

I began asking:

“What if I need to become attentive to what God is doing within my heart?”

That was a completely different question.

And suddenly,

Centering Prayer began making sense.

What Does the Bible Mean by “Heart”

When Scripture speaks about the heart,

it often means much more than the organ pumping blood through our bodies.

The biblical heart is associated with our deepest thoughts,

intentions,

desires,

understanding,

choices,

and commitments.

So when I talk about listening with the heart,

I am not suggesting that Jesus has moved into the left ventricle.

If your cardiologist discovers the Holy Spirit on an echocardiogram,

I suspect several medical journals will want exclusive publishing rights.

I'm talking about the inner person.

That deep interior place where we:

think,

discern,

love,

choose,

believe,

and respond to God.

God’s Voice May Not Arrive Through the Ears

This became extremely important to my understanding of Centering Prayer.

I stopped testing God, and requiring God's voice to arrive as audible sound.

During quiet prayer,

I began paying attention to what I describe as:

word-thoughts,

persistent convictions,

mental images,

and callings impressed upon my heart.

A word-thought is something I experience inwardly —

not as sound waves entering my ears,

but as words or ideas appearing clearly within the mind.

Likewise,

a vision does not necessarily mean our physical eyes suddenly see something standing in the room.

An image may appear within the mind.

And a calling does not require the heart monitor to start producing unusual readings.

The biblical heart is not a telephone mounted beside the aorta.

A calling can be a deep conviction toward something God may be asking us to do:

Help someone.

Forgive someone.

Encourage someone.

Call someone.

Create something.

Go somewhere.

Serve.

But Not Every Thought Comes From God

This brings us to one of the most important words in Centering Prayer:

discernment.

Every thought that enters my head is not automatically a message from God.

Thank goodness.

If that were true,

God apparently spends an astonishing amount of time discussing where I left my glasses.

Our minds constantly produce thoughts.

Memories.

Imagination.

Fear.

Desire.

Habit.

Emotion.

Intuition.

Impulse.

So listening prayer cannot become:

“I thought it, therefore God said it.”

We listen.

But we also discern.

Test What You Hear

What we believe we are receiving should be examined in light of:

Scripture,

the character of Jesus,

His teachings,

the fruit of the Spirit,

prayerful wisdom,

and when needed,

wise Christian counsel.

If an inner message tells me to hate someone,

seek revenge,

deceive somebody,

glorify myself,

or deliberately hurt one of God's children,

I have an excellent reason to reject it.

The Holy Spirit is not going to spend thousands of years teaching God's children to love one another

and then whisper on Tuesday morning:

“Bill, I've reviewed the situation and decided hatred is fine this week.”

God's character matters.

God is love.

And what we believe we hear should increasingly lead us toward:

love,

truth,

peace,

humility,

forgiveness,

and service.

The World Is Very Good at Making Noise

This is why silence became so valuable to me.

We live surrounded by stimulation.

Televisions talk.

Phones chirp.

Computers demand passwords.

Emails arrive.

Advertisements follow us across the Internet like bloodhounds with excellent Wi-Fi.

Our minds rarely get five quiet minutes.

And somewhere along the way,

silence began feeling almost unnatural.

Then we wonder:

“Why can't I hear God?”

Perhaps the problem isn't always God's volume.

Maybe the room is simply too noisy.

Centering Prayer Creates Room to Listen

Centering Prayer deliberately creates that room.

I become still.

I set aside my plans.

I stop presenting God with my agenda.

I quiet the 1,000 squirrels in the attic.

And I ask the question that changed my life:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I wait.

Sometimes nothing dramatic happens.

That's important.

Silence does not mean failure.

We don't have to manufacture an experience because we're afraid God isn't performing on schedule.

Sometimes resting quietly in God's presence is enough.

Sometimes we wait because God's timing involves other people,

circumstances,

and plans that we cannot yet see.

God's plan is always larger than the tiny piece visible from where I am standing.

Then Comes the Hard Part

Listening can be difficult.

But sometimes the next part is harder.

Obedience.

Samuel eventually learned to answer:

“Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Saul asked:

“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

Those are not requests for entertainment.

They are declarations of availability.

“Lord, I am listening.”

“Lord, what do You want?”

“Lord, I am willing.”

That,

to me,

is Centering Prayer.

We Are Not Hunting for Supernatural Experiences

We are not becoming quiet merely because peace feels pleasant.

We are not hunting for visions.

We are not trying to collect spiritual experiences like merit badges.

We are certainly not trying to become more important than everybody else.

Centering Prayer is not a spiritual talent show.

We become quiet because:

we want to know Jesus.

We want to discern His guidance.

We want to learn to trust Him.

We want to learn to obey Him.

And we want to become willing servants in His Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

I Spent Seventy Years Waiting for God to Get Louder

For seventy years,

I waited for God to become loud enough for my ears.

I expected Him to communicate according to my rules.

I wanted proof that fit neatly into my physical world.

I wanted a sound.

A sight.

Something I could point toward.

Something undeniable.

But eventually,

I began asking a completely different question:

What if God had been calling me all along?

What if the Spirit of His Son really was within my heart?

What if the gentle nudges I ignored,

the persistent convictions I dismissed,

and that lifelong feeling that there had to be something more

were invitations to listen?

I spent seventy years wondering why God wasn't speaking.

Now I sometimes wonder how many times He was speaking

while I was busy doing all the talking.

Jesus Came for People Like Me

That is why I especially want this article to reach the skeptics.

The doubters.

The people who hear someone say:

“God put this in my heart”

and immediately think:

“Sure He did.”

I understand you.

I was you.

For seventy years,

I had not seen God.

I had not heard God.

And I had plenty of logical reasons for not getting up at 4:30 in the morning to listen for Someone I wasn't even sure existed.

Jesus also came for people like me.

He came for sinners.

He came for doubters.

He came for people who don't understand yet.

He came for people whose hearts haven't learned how to listen.

And sometimes,

the first act of faith doesn't require understanding everything.

It simply requires becoming quiet enough to ask:

“Jesus... are You there?”

Then listen.

Maybe God Was Never the Quiet One

Today,

Centering Prayer begins my morning.

I become still.

I close my eyes to reduce the distractions.

I quiet my thoughts.

I remember that God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

And I ask:

“Lord Jesus... how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

Not with the expectation of thunder.

Not with the expectation that my neighbor will hear God's answer through the wall.

Not demanding a voice from heaven.

I listen with my heart.

I discern what I receive.

And when I become convinced that Jesus is calling me toward His love and service,

I try to obey.

For seventy years,

I thought the problem was that God wasn't speaking loudly enough.

Looking back,

I think the problem may have been much simpler.

I was doing all the talking.

Maybe God didn't need to get louder.

Maybe Bill needed to get quieter.

And perhaps that is where Centering Prayer begins for all of us:

Become still.

Open your heart.

Ask:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You?”

Then —

for once —

don't finish the conversation for Him.

Listen.

Chapter 12

The Battle for Our Minds: “Deliver Us from Evil”

Don’t Be Afraid to Listen to God

Surrendering Fear, Testing What We Hear, and Trusting Jesus to Lead Us

When I first began experiencing what I believed were thoughts from God during Centering Prayer,

I did not jump out of bed shouting:

“Hallelujah! God is talking to me!”

Quite the opposite.

I wanted to run.

I was frightened.

Almost terrified.

Part of me wondered whether these thoughts were simply my imagination with a new job title and considerably more confidence.

Another part of me wanted to close the door on the whole experience,

walk away,

and return to the comfortable world where everything required:

evidence,

measurements,

documentation,

and preferably a double-blind study

before I was willing to believe it.

That world felt safe.

I knew the rules there.

Forty Years of Professional Skepticism

You have to understand where I was coming from.

I was a seventy-year-old veterinarian who had practiced medicine for more than forty years.

My professional life had trained me to be skeptical.

That skepticism was not a weakness.

It was part of my responsibility.

I spent decades trying to protect my clients from treatments that promised miracles

but sometimes delivered little more than an expensive bottle and an impressive label.

The old snake-oil salesman did not disappear when the horse and wagon disappeared.

He discovered Wi-Fi.

Today he has:

a website,

a shopping cart,

twelve glowing testimonials,

a photograph of someone wearing a white coat,

and —

for the next eleven minutes only —

FREE SHIPPING!

The horse may be gone,

but apparently a sales department replaced it.

So skepticism had become part of me.

If a medicine did not have credible evidence behind it,

I approached it cautiously.

That was good medicine.

Then I began Centering Prayer.

And suddenly I was encountering something that could not be:

placed on an examination table,

weighed on a scale,

seen under a microscope,

or mailed to the laboratory.

I believed God was putting thoughts and convictions into my heart.

And my scientifically trained mind immediately announced:

“Bill, we have a problem.”

What If I’m Being Deceived?

My greatest fear was not simply:

“What if this is my imagination?”

I also wondered:

“What if I open myself spiritually and something other than the Holy Spirit tries to influence me?”

That question became enormously important:

How do I know who I am listening to?

For someone who had spent seventy years doubting spiritual experiences,

this was not a small concern.

I had finally opened the door —

and suddenly I wanted to know who might be standing on the other side.

That fear could easily have made me close the door again.

And that is exactly why this article matters so much to me.

I do not want fear of the unknown to keep someone else from listening to God

the way it kept me from listening for seventy years.

God Gave Me Help Before I Was Ready to Trust Myself

During that early period,

God gave me something I desperately needed.

I joined a church where two pastors were willing to meet with me privately each week.

I told them what I believed I was experiencing.

I described the thoughts,

convictions,

questions,

and spiritual experiences that frightened me.

And they listened.

Week after week,

I could bring those experiences to them and examine them in the light of:

Scripture,

Jesus Christ,

Christian wisdom,

and the fruit they produced.

They reassured me that if they believed something I described was spiritually dangerous,

they would tell me.

That gave me something I desperately needed:

peace.

I did not have to navigate everything alone.

And because I trusted them,

I became willing to continue listening to something

I could not see with my eyes,

touch with my hands,

or hear with my ears.

They became an important lifeline while I learned something completely new:

how to trust God instead of trusting only myself.

The Bible Never Pretends Temptation Isn’t Real

Then I began noticing something in Scripture that I had somehow missed.

The Bible does not tell us that temptation is imaginary.

Jesus Himself taught us to pray:

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Look carefully at that prayer.

Where does the power lie?

Jesus does not teach us to say:

“Lord, stand back. I’ve got this.”

He teaches us to ask:

God, deliver me.

That distinction changed everything for me.

Centering Prayer is not about making me mentally powerful enough to defeat every temptation by myself.

Quite the opposite.

Centering Prayer continually reminds me how dependent I am upon God.

I surrender.

God acts.

I trust.

God leads.

I ask for protection.

God delivers.

Jesus Faced the Tempter Too

That is why the story of Jesus in the wilderness became so important to me.

Jesus was tempted, by a tempter spirit, with:

bread,

power,

recognition,

kingdoms,

and glory.

The tempter repeatedly tried to pull His attention away from complete obedience to God.

Yet Jesus continually returned to Scripture.

He said:

“It is written...”

And finally:

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.”

Those words go directly to the heart of Centering Prayer.

The great question is:

Whom am I going to serve?

God?

Or something else?

I Had Already Spent Seventy Years Choosing

That question forced me to look backward at my own life.

For much of my first seventy years,

I served my own will.

I chased money.

I chased success.

I dreamed up one money-making idea after another.

I trusted my intelligence.

I trusted my education.

I trusted my experience.

And —

if I am going to admit it —

my ego was not exactly suffering from malnutrition.

It ate very well.

I believed I was steering the ship.

I was:

captain,

navigator,

engineer,

and occasionally the fellow standing proudly on the bow

pointing confidently in the wrong direction.

I did not wake up each morning asking:

“Holy Spirit, how may I serve You today?”

I asked:

“What do I want to do today?”

That is an enormous difference.

The Battle Is Over the Center of the Heart

Looking backward through the eyes of faith,

I now understand those years as a spiritual battle over what would occupy the center of my life.

Would it be:

God?

Or:

Bill?

Would I pursue God's will —

or my will?

Would I love God with all my heart and soul —

or would money,

pride,

ambition,

pleasure,

and recognition quietly move onto the throne?

Scripture warns us about this struggle.

Paul describes people becoming:

“lovers of themselves, lovers of money...”

and:

“lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

When I finally read those words seriously,

I did not feel as though Paul were describing a mysterious group of people thousands of miles away.

I felt as though:

Paul had somehow been reading my email.

And I wanted to know who had given him the password.

The Real Freedom Was Admitting I Couldn’t Fix Myself

That realization was uncomfortable.

But it was also liberating.

Eventually I recognized something enormously important:

I could not transform myself into the person God wanted me to become.

Only God had that power.

For years,

I had tried to run everything.

My career.

My finances.

My future.

My plans.

My reputation.

My life.

Apparently, I had also decided that spiritual transformation belonged somewhere on Bill's personal to-do list.

It did not.

God is the One with the power.

That is exactly what Jesus taught us to pray:

“Deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”

Notice the words.

Not:

my kingdom.

Not:

my power.

Not:

my glory.

His.

That took an enormous weight off my shoulders.

Discernment Still Matters

Surrendering to God does not mean believing every thought that enters my mind.

When something comes into my heart during Centering Prayer,

I do not want to follow it merely because it appeared there.

I bring it before God.

I ask:

Does this reflect the unconditional love Jesus commanded us to have for one another?

Does it lead me toward God —

or toward myself?

Does it call me toward:

love,

humility,

forgiveness,

truth,

peace,

and service?

Or does it lead toward:

hatred,

revenge,

greed,

vanity,

selfishness,

fear,

and pride?

Jesus commanded us to love one another as He loved us.

For me,

that command is one of the brightest lights God has given us for recognizing our path ahead.

If It Doesn’t Look Like Jesus, Stop!

Both Matthew and Paul warn us that tempter spirits are real.

So we turn to God and discern.

The Holy Spirit is not going to teach us unconditional love for thousands of years

and then whisper to me one Tuesday morning:

“Bill, I’ve reconsidered. Revenge seems like a wonderful idea today.”

That would not fit the character of Christ.

So I listen.

But I also discern.

I ask whether what I believe I am hearing resembles Jesus.

Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit?

Does it bring:

love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self-control?

If not,

I need to stop.

Pray.

Discern.

Seek Scripture.

And when necessary,

ask wise Christians for help.

Listening to God does not require us to abandon wisdom.

It requires us to surrender our will.

Those are not the same thing.

I Don’t Have to Wrestle Temptation Alone

When I recognize something as temptation,

my confidence is not in my ability to wrestle it into submission through sheer mental strength.

My confidence is in:

Jesus Christ.

I can pray:

“Jesus, deliver me from this temptation.”

“Take it away from me.”

“I surrender it to You.”

I do not have to defeat evil by becoming stronger than evil.

I turn toward the One who is stronger.

That is the part I missed for most of my life.

I had spent decades training myself to believe that strength meant:

solving the problem,

controlling the problem,

fixing the problem,

and preferably preparing three backup plans in case the original solution developed complications.

Centering Prayer taught me something radically different:

Surrender can be strength.

Centering Prayer Is Surrender

Centering Prayer is not about becoming the master of my own mind.

It is about surrendering my:

mind,

heart,

soul,

ambitions,

fears,

desires,

plans,

and future

to God.

It is saying:

“Lord, I do not want my will ruling my life anymore.”

“I want Your will.”

Then I listen.

Sometimes I simply rest quietly in God's presence

and experience His peace and unconditional love.

Sometimes I search Scripture for wisdom.

Sometimes a conviction remains strongly upon my heart,

and I prayerfully test it before acting.

Sometimes I wait.

And sometimes God's answer appears to be:

“Bill, you're going to have to be patient.”

I have noticed that God seems remarkably comfortable with patience.

But, Bill has historically been less tolerant of it.

Keep God at the Center

But no matter what happens,

the center remains the same:

God.

Not wealth.

Not power.

Not vanity.

Not pleasure.

Not my ego.

Not fear.

Not even the spiritual experience itself.

Only God.

Jesus said it perfectly in the wilderness:

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.”

That is spiritual warfare as I have come to understand it.

The battle is about:

whom I will trust,

whom I will love,

and whom I will serve.

And I finally understand that I do not win that battle by announcing how spiritually powerful I am.

I win by understanding how powerless I am:

without God.

What About Fear?

This is where I especially want to speak to anyone who is frightened of listening.

I understand that fear.

I lived with it.

You may worry:

“What if I imagined this thing?”

Our minds are incredibly creative.

Human beings imagine things.

You may wonder:

“What if I misunderstand something?”

You probably will at some point.

Human beings misunderstand things too.

You may worry:

“What if I am tempted?”

Scripture says temptation is real.

But none of those things means you must run away from God.

They mean:

get closer to God.

Use Scripture.

Use discernment.

Look for Christ's unconditional love.

Seek wise counsel when needed.

And remember Jesus taught us to pray:

“Deliver us from evil.”

We are not alone.

Fear Does Not Get the Final Word

Paul tells believers to:

“be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.”

Notice again where the strength is found.

Not:

be strong in Bill.

Not:

be strong in yourself.

But:

“Be strong in the Lord.”

Then Paul tells us to put on the Armor of God.

Truth.

Righteousness.

Faith.

Salvation.

The Gospel of peace.

The Word of God.

Prayer.

God does not invite us into spiritual life

and then abandon us at the door.

He gives us what we need.

Centering Prayer Changed the Center of My Life

Every morning,

Centering Prayer brings me back to surrender.

I become quiet before Jesus and ask:

“Lord Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

When fear comes,

I give it to Him.

When temptation comes,

I ask Him to deliver me from it.

When pride tries to climb back onto its old throne,

I ask God to kindly remove the unauthorized occupant.

Apparently pride keeps forgetting that his lease expired.

And when I believe God has placed a loving calling upon my heart,

I pray for the faith to obey.

For seventy years,

the center of my world was largely:

me.

Centering Prayer changed the center.

The Billboard in My Heart

Today,

I sometimes imagine God placing a giant billboard across my heart.

It does not advertise:

money,

power,

success,

prestige,

or another brilliant plan from Bill.

It simply says:

WELCOME TO CHRIST’S KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ON EARTH

And underneath it,

I imagine one simple instruction:

Love God,

Trust God,

Listen to God,

And Serve God.

The Kingdom is:

His.

The power is:

His.

The glory is:

His.

And that means I do not have to be frightened of approaching God.

I do not have to possess all the answers before I begin.

I do not have to become spiritually powerful before I listen.

I simply have to become willing.

Willing to surrender.

Willing to listen.

Willing to discern.

Willing to trust.

And willing to serve.

Don’t Let Fear Keep You From the One Who Loves You

That is the message I most want people to hear.

Do not let fear keep you from listening to God.

Fear kept me away for seventy years.

I thought I needed certainty before I could listen.

Instead,

I discovered that trust grew because I began listening.

One day at a time.

One prayer at a time.

One act of obedience at a time.

God did not ask me to understand everything on the first morning.

He simply invited me to come closer.

So if the idea of listening to God frightens you,

begin gently.

Become still.

Remember that Jesus taught us to ask God for protection.

Remember that Scripture gives us ways to discern.

Remember that God is love.

And simply pray:

“Lord Jesus, I surrender my fear to You.”

“Protect me.”

“Teach me.”

“How may I serve You today?”

Then become still.

And listen.

You do not need to be fearless before approaching Jesus.

You approach Jesus because He is the One who can lead you through the fear.

The Kingdom is His.

The power is His.

The glory is His.

Forever. Amen.

Chapter 13

Cell Phone in our Hearts

God’s Call Is Already in Your Heart

Dreams, Visions, Word-Thoughts, and the Spiritual “Cellphone”Within Us

For most of my life,

I thought communicating with God required something spectacular.

A voice booming from heaven would have been helpful.

A burning bush would certainly have gotten my attention.

I probably would have settled for an angel appearing at the foot of my bed holding a clipboard that said:

“Bill, here are today's instructions.”

Instead,

I eventually came to believe that God had already provided the connection.

He put it in my heart.

Paul tells us in Galatians 4:6:

“God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

And the prophet Joel gives us an extraordinary picture of what happens when God pours out His Spirit:

“Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.”

“Your old men will dream dreams.”

“Your young men will see visions.”

Those scriptures gave me a modern way of thinking about Centering Prayer:

God invented the cellphone long before we did.

No monthly bill.

No roaming charges.

No dead zones.

No busy signals.

No answering machine.

And best of all:

no spam.

I don't even have to remember where I left it.

The connection is already in my heart.

No, there Is Not a Samsung Behind My Sternum

Of course,

I do not mean that God literally installed a Samsung Galaxy somewhere behind my breastbone.

If your cardiologist finds one during an X-ray,

you and I have an entirely different problem to discuss.

The cellphone is simply a metaphor.

It is my way of picturing something much more profound:

the personal relationship between God's children, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within them.

The connection is spiritual.

The receiver is the heart.

And Centering Prayer,

for me,

is learning to answer the call.

God Has More Than One Way to Communicate

Joel tells us about:

dreams,

visions,

prophecy,

and the pouring out of God's Spirit.

Joseph in Genesis receives dreams that reveal something about his future.

The New Testament Joseph receives God's direction through a dream at one of the most important moments of his life.

He is struggling over what to do about Mary.

Then an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him:

“Don't be afraid.”

That dream changes the direction of his life.

So Scripture itself tells us that God is not limited to one method of communication.

Sometimes the message may come as a dream.

Sometimes a vision.

Sometimes a calling impressed upon the heart.

Sometimes,

in my own experience,

as what I call a:

word-thought.

What Is a Word-Thought?

A word-thought is not something I hear through my physical ears.

It is an inward word,

phrase,

or idea

that appears clearly within my mind.

It may arrive quietly.

It may be very brief.

Sometimes it is so gentle that it would be easy to dismiss.

That was certainly true for me.

For seventy years,

I became extremely skilled at dismissing anything spiritual.

If ignoring God had been an Olympic event,

I might have made the team.

Looking backward now,

I believe there were many times when God was calling me

and I simply wasn't paying attention.

My spiritual phone wasn't broken.

I just wasn't answering it.

And unfortunately,

there was no message appearing across my heart saying:

“You have 14,673 unread messages from the Holy Spirit.”

The Line Was Always There

When I finally began practicing Centering Prayer consistently,

something changed.

Not because God suddenly moved closer to me.

I began paying attention.

I became still.

I listened.

I surrendered my plans.

And I began asking:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I waited.

That simple practice completely changed my understanding of prayer.

Instead of spending all my time transmitting,

I finally started receiving.

For most of my life,

my prayer line apparently operated in one direction.

Bill talked.

God listened.

Then Bill talked some more.

Centering Prayer taught me that friendship works considerably better when both sides get a turn.

This Is a Service Line

I sometimes imagine the Holy Spirit's connection as a dedicated line.

But let's be clear about what this spiritual cellphone does not provide.

There is no football package.

No Netflix.

No video games.

No breaking-news alerts.

No coupon notifications.

No advertisement saying:

“God noticed you were thinking about forgiveness. Here are twelve products you may also enjoy.”

This isn't an entertainment line.

It is about:

relationship,

love,

obedience,

and:

service.

The purpose is not to make our spiritual lives more exciting.

The purpose is to help us become available to Christ.

Everyone May Receive a Different Assignment

I sometimes picture Christ's Kingdom as an enormous coordinated mission.

Millions of people may be serving,

but not everyone receives the same assignment.

One person may be called to comfort someone who is grieving.

Another may feed someone who is hungry.

Someone else may:

teach,

heal,

forgive,

create,

give,

or simply sit beside someone who desperately needs a friend.

Different assignments.

Different gifts.

Different people.

One Lord.

One Spirit.

One Kingdom.

That is beautiful to me.

God does not need every Christian doing exactly the same thing.

The Body of Christ already has enough duplication without seven billion people all trying to become the right hand.

Stop Assuming God’s Plan Is Your Plan

This is why Centering Prayer has become so important to me.

If I want to serve Christ,

I need to stop assuming that whatever Bill planned this morning automatically received heavenly approval.

I must become still enough to surrender my agenda and ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listen.

Sometimes the answer may involve something small.

Call someone.

Encourage someone.

Forgive someone.

Help someone.

Sometimes the calling may seem much larger.

And that is where my own story became very uncomfortable.

“Unite All of My Children”

One of the first word-thoughts that became firmly planted in my mind was:

“Unite all of My children.”

My immediate response was approximately:

“You've got the wrong number.”

Remember,

I was only beginning this journey.

I had spent most of my life as an agnostic.

I was just starting to believe that God might actually be communicating with me,

and suddenly I believed I had received an assignment that sounded completely impossible.

My scientific mind immediately began cross-examination.

Was this God?

Was this imagination?

Was my ego trying to climb back into the driver's seat wearing a halo?

I didn't know.

So I kept listening.

Then the Assignment Got Bigger

Then came another persistent word-thought:

“Save My children in China.”

That did not make the situation seem more reasonable.

Quite the opposite.

I felt like a private in the army, being handed a map of an entire continent and told:

“Here's your section.”

I had no idea what that calling meant.

I had no idea what part I could possibly play.

And eventually,

that taught me something very important:

a calling does not necessarily include the entire plan.

God may give us a direction

without giving us every mile marker between here and there.

Apparently the heavenly navigation system occasionally says:

“Proceed as directed.”

And then expects us to trust the Driver.

Joseph Wasn’t Given the Road Map Either

The Joseph of Genesis helps me understand this.

As a young man,

Joseph dreamed about sheaves bowing before his sheaf,

and then about the sun,

moon,

and eleven stars bowing before him.

What Joseph did not receive was a detailed itinerary saying:

First,

your brothers will throw you into a pit.

Then you'll be sold into slavery.

Then you'll be falsely accused.

Then prison.

Then Pharaoh.

Then famine.

eventually everything will make sense.

Joseph received the dream.

God knew the route.

Joseph didn't.

That distinction has become extremely important to me.

If I believe God has placed something enormous upon my heart,

I do not have to pretend that I understand how it will happen.

My responsibility is not to become God.

My responsibility is to serve God.

The Other Joseph Had to Trust Too

The Joseph in the New Testament faced an entirely different crisis.

Mary was pregnant.

Joseph knew the child was not his.

He was preparing to quietly end the relationship.

Then an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him:

“Don't be afraid.”

Take Mary as your wife.

The child is of the Holy Spirit.

Name Him Jesus.

That dream changed everything.

Joseph listened.

Joseph trusted.

Joseph obeyed.

And because he obeyed,

he became part of God's plan in a way he could never have designed himself.

Again,

the pattern appears:

God communicates.

His child listens.

His child trusts.

His child obeys.

Sometimes God May Need the Visual Aids

Later in my own journey,

I began experiencing what I interpreted as visions.

At a Centering Prayer retreat,

I once heard a speaker jokingly describe visions as something God might use for the:

“remedial learners.”

You know —

the stubborn students who require larger print,

additional examples,

and perhaps a diagram.

I immediately felt represented.

There is an old story about a farmer whose mule refused to move.

The farmer picked up a two-by-four

and gave the mule a whack on his head.

His horrified friend asked:

“Why did you do that?”

The farmer replied:

“First, I have to get his attention.”

Sometimes I wonder whether,

after seventy years of watching me ignore subtle spiritual nudges,

God looked at me and thought:

“We're going to need the visual aids for this boy.”

Experiences I Couldn’t Forget

I later experienced several vivid mental images that I interpreted spiritually.

One involved an enormous dark cloud moving along the expressway near my church.

On another occasion,

I perceived the same cloud extending six tube-like forms toward the church door.

Those experiences were unforgettable to me.

They were also frightening.

I did not immediately announce:

“Wonderful! I completely understand all of this.”

Quite the opposite.

I wondered whether I should stop listening altogether.

I Needed People I Could Trust

Thankfully,

I was not trying to understand everything by myself.

Two pastors whom I trusted listened privately as I described what I was experiencing.

They did not ridicule me.

They did not panic.

They gave me room to continue:

praying,

studying Scripture,

practicing Centering Prayer,

and discerning.

That was enormously important.

Later,

when I encountered Paul's discussion of the gift of:

“discerning of spirits”

in 1 Corinthians 12,

I began viewing my experiences through what I understood as a biblical spiritual framework.

That is my testimony.

But it is important that I say this clearly:

your experience will not look like mine.

God Does Not Need Seven Billion Bills

Joel does not say every person receives the same:

dream,

vision,

calling,

or spiritual gift.

Paul specifically teaches that different gifts are distributed to different people.

Your journey with God does not need to look like mine.

That's actually part of the beauty of it.

God does not need seven billion copies of Bill Bledsoe.

One is already quite enough.

Some days,

possibly more than enough.

God calls each of His children according to His purposes.

Your calling may seem enormous.

Or it may appear wonderfully ordinary.

Never confuse ordinary with unimportant.

God’s Kingdom Is Built Through Small Acts Too

Perhaps God puts one frightened person on your heart.

You call them.

Perhaps He reminds you of someone you need to forgive.

You forgive.

Perhaps you feel led to visit a lonely neighbor.

You go.

Perhaps a struggling child needs encouragement.

You encourage.

Those actions may never make the news.

No television crew will appear.

There probably will not be a headline saying:

“LOCAL CHRISTIAN PERFORMS ACT OF KINDNESS; WORLD CONTINUES ROTATING.”

But in God's Kingdom,

that simple act of obedience may matter enormously.

We may never know everything God accomplishes through one small:

“Yes, Lord.”

The Question Is Not, “Will I Get Visions?”

The important question isn't:

“Will God give me visions?”

It isn't:

“Will I receive spectacular spiritual gifts?”

And it certainly isn't:

“Will my spiritual cellphone get the deluxe package?”

The question is much simpler:

“Am I willing to answer?”

And:

“Am I willing to serve?”

Centering Prayer begins there.

Become still before God.

Surrender your will.

Ask Jesus:

“How may I serve You today?”

Then:

listen,

discern,

trust,

and obey.

Discernment Eliminates the Crank Calls

Listening does not mean believing every thought that enters our minds.

My mind is perfectly capable of generating plenty of material without divine assistance.

So I listen —

but I also discern.

I ask:

Does this lead toward God's unconditional love?

Does it agree with the character and teachings of Jesus?

Does it call me toward humility and service rather than ego and self-glorification?

Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit?

Love?

Joy?

Peace?

Patience?

Kindness?

Goodness?

Faithfulness?

Gentleness?

Self-control?

If what I believe I am hearing leads away from Christ's character,

I need to stop and examine it carefully.

The Holy Spirit is not going to spend thousands of years teaching unconditional love

and then suddenly send me a message saying:

“New policy: Revenge is now acceptable.”

Discernment matters.

You Do Not Need the Whole Route

This is another lesson Joseph taught me.

You don't need the entire route.

Joseph didn't.

You don't need all the resources.

God does.

You don't have to know what God is asking someone else to do.

That's between God and them.

You only need to ask:

“What are You asking me to do?”

Then take the next faithful step.

That is much easier than trying to run the Kingdom.

I tried running my own little kingdom for seventy years.

The management reviews were mixed.

Your Relationship With God Is Personal

Your relationship with the Holy Spirit is deeply personal.

No one else has your exact calling.

No one else has your exact life.

No one else has your exact gifts.

You are learning to:

know God,

love God,

listen to God,

trust God,

and serve God.

Centering Prayer provides the quiet space where that relationship can grow.

And relationships take time.

Trust grows.

Discernment grows.

Love grows.

Faith grows.

One quiet morning at a time.

I Thought I Had to Understand Everything First

For seventy years,

I believed I needed to understand everything

before I could believe anything.

Centering Prayer turned that around.

Today,

I believe God already knows what I need.

My job is not to know everything God knows.

That would be a rather ambitious morning assignment.

My job is to:

know Him,

love Him,

listen to Him,

trust Him,

and:

serve Him.

Before Your Other Phone Starts Ringing

So tomorrow morning,

before the television starts talking,

before the computer begins demanding passwords,

before the emails arrive,

and before your regular cellphone begins announcing everything the rest of the world thinks is urgently important,

spend some quiet time with the Spirit whom Scripture says God has placed in your heart.

You do not need a burning bush.

You do not need an angel with a clipboard.

You do not need a booming voice from the sky.

Simply ask:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then become still.

Listen.

Discern.

Trust.

And when you become convinced that Christ is calling you toward His love and service,

obey.

Your journey will not be mine.

It shouldn't be.

Your spiritual phone may never receive the same messages as mine.

That's fine.

The important thing is that you answer the line God has given you.

Because perhaps the Holy Spirit has been calling for much longer than we realize.

The connection may already be there.

The Spirit of His Son is already in our hearts.

So the real question is not:

“Does God have my number?”

The real question is:

“Am I finally willing to answer?”

Chapter 14

Learning to See and Hear God With the Heart

Can You Hear God Without Your Ears?

Learning to See, Hear, and Understand With the Heart

There is a question Jesus repeatedly challenges us to consider,

and at first it sounds almost ridiculous:

Can you see?

Can you hear?

My first response would have been:

“Of course I can.”

My hearing has always been pretty good.

I don't wear hearing aids.

And after cataract surgery,

my eyesight improved enough that after twenty-five years of being required to wear glasses while driving,

I can now pass the South Carolina driving vision test without them.

So congratulations to me.

My eyes and ears work.

Apparently I am medically qualified to read road signs and hear somebody asking me to take out the trash.

But that isn't what Jesus was talking about.

Jesus Was Asking a Different Question

Jesus wasn't administering an eye examination.

He wasn't asking His disciples to cover one eye and read the bottom row of a heavenly vision chart.

He was asking something infinitely more important:

Can you perceive God?

In Matthew 13,

Jesus describes people who physically see,

but don't really see.

They physically hear,

but don't really hear or understand.

Then Jesus reaches the heart of the matter.

He says they need to:

“understand with their hearts.”

And finally He tells His disciples:

“Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”

That completely changes the question.

Perhaps what we really need to ask is:

Can we see without our physical eyes?

Can we hear without our physical ears?

And ultimately:

Can our hearts become attentive to the Holy Spirit?

For me,

that is one of the foundations of Centering Prayer.

God Put His Spirit Within Us for a Reason

Paul tells us in “ Corinthians 2”that

God reveals spiritual things:

“by His Spirit.”

He says believers have received:

“the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.”

Then Paul says something that once would have sounded completely foreign to me:

“spiritual realities”

are spiritually discerned.

That means there are things of God that cannot be understood merely through physical senses.

We need the Spirit.

Then Jesus gives us an extraordinary promise about the Holy Spirit:

“The Holy Spirit... will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

And immediately before His Ascension,

Luke tells us:

“Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

Those verses have become enormously important to me.

Christianity is not merely about putting more information into our brains.

God wants to transform the way we understand.

I Spent Most of My Life Looking Through One Window

For much of my life,

I approached reality almost entirely through my physical senses and intellect.

If I couldn't:

see it,

hear it,

touch it,

measure it,

test it,

or demonstrate it,

I had difficulty believing it was real.

That attitude served me well professionally.

If somebody told me they had developed a miracle cure for an animal,

I wanted evidence.

Preferably before the invoice arrived.

But eventually I began wondering whether I had spent my whole life looking through only one window.

The physical window.

Centering Prayer opened another one.

Listening With the Heart

I began becoming still before God and asking:

“Jesus, how may I serve You today?”

Then I listened.

For me,

listening to God does not ordinarily mean sound waves entering my physical ears.

Seeing spiritually does not necessarily mean photons entering my eyes.

I have come to understand spiritual listening as becoming attentive to:

word-thoughts,

convictions,

callings,

dreams,

and:

mental images

that arise within the heart and mind.

Then comes something absolutely essential:

discernment.

I do not assume that every thought entering my head came directly from God.

My brain can create enough material without supernatural assistance.

So I listen,

but I also test.

Does what I believe I am receiving agree with Scripture?

Does it resemble Jesus?

Does it lead toward agapē —

God's unconditional love?

Does it produce:

love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self-control?

Spiritual openness does not mean spiritual gullibility.

The Heart Is More Than a Pump

When the Bible speaks of the heart,

it means much more than the muscle pumping blood through our bodies.

Our hearts represent the deep interior place where we:

love,

understand,

choose,

believe,

discern,

and respond.

So when I say that we hear God through our hearts,

I am not suggesting that Jesus has rented a furnished apartment between the ventricles.

If your cardiologist spots the Holy Spirit in an X-ray,

please ask for a copy.

I'd like to see it.

I'm talking about the inner person —

the part of us that can become attentive to God's Spirit.

That is why Matthew 13 is so important.

Jesus speaks about people who:

see,

hear,

and yet fail to understand.

Then Jesus says:

“understand with their hearts.”

That's the key.

Become Like a Child — Not Childish

Jesus tells us:

“Let the little children come to Me... for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

I don't understand that as an invitation to become childish.

There is already enough of that, available in me, without any spiritual encouragement.

I understand it as an invitation to become:

childlike.

Curious.

Teachable.

Trusting.

Filled with wonder.

Ready to learn.

Children possess something adults often lose.

They expect there is more to discover.

Show a child something amazing and the questions begin immediately:

“Why?”

Then:

“How?”

Then:

“Why?”again.

Then another seventeen questions

until the nearest adult begins searching desperately for another adult.

But underneath all those questions is something beautiful:

A child believes there is more to know.

That is how I want to approach God.

The Spirit World Is Bigger Than What We Can See

For me, learning to see spiritually, meant becoming willing to imagine, and believe in Jesus, and in His spiritual world.

Scripture repeatedly describes the spirit world and Jesus’Kingdom, which is here on earth now.

But for us to truly believe in Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit in our hearts,

and His Kingdom, then we must be able to believe that a spirit world actually exists around us.

That’s the hard part in Centering Prayer.

Knowing, in our hearts, that there is a spiritual world all around us.

This was my stumbling block and why I was an agnostic for 70 years.

I was told by those that could not see or hear, that there was not a spirit world all around us.

I was told that believing in a spirit world that I could not see or hear, was insane. No one else around me could see or hear it. I was called gullible, and naive.

But through continued Centering Prayer, now I can see and now I can hear with my heart.

Through Centering Prayer, I can now understand the wisdom that is found in the scriptures.

That’s why I feel called to write this book. It’s documenting Centering Prayer as seen through the scriptures.

The Spirit World is All Around US

Daniel saw:

“ten thousand times ten thousand”

angels standing before God.

Revelation describes:

“thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand”angels.

Ten thousand times ten thousand is one hundred million spirits.

My mind has difficulty picturing one hundred million of anything.

I occasionally have difficulty picturing, in my mind, how to get to where I'm driving, let alone 100 million angels flying around me.

Yet, Scripture repeatedly gives us images of an enormous spiritual reality.

Revelation describes:

“the armies of heaven”

following Christ.

Whether we are reading about:

prophecy,

visions,

parables,

poetry,

or historical narrative,

the Bible repeatedly asks us to look beyond what our physical senses alone can perceive.

The visible world is not the whole story.

Why Technology Helped Me Read Scripture Differently

Strangely enough,

modern technology became part of my spiritual journey.

I spent twenty-five years writing code as a certified database administrator.

Searching through enormous collections of information was something I understood very well.

So when powerful Bible-search tools,

and eventually artificial intelligence,

became available,

I immediately saw their usefulness.

Imagine searching for a needle in a haystack.

One way to look for it is to pull out each piece of hay,

inspect it,

put it down,

and repeat this process ad nauseam.

Or, you could move an enormous magnet through the haystack

and let the magnet find the needle.

That is how I think about modern search tools.

They can help us:

find passages,

compare translations,

trace recurring words,

organize themes,

and search across enormous amounts of biblical text very quickly.

But I want to make one thing crystal clear:

AI is not the Holy Spirit.

Not remotely.

AI is a tool.

God is God.

Technology can help me find Scriptures.

It cannot turn a random verse into God's personal command to me.

Technology can help me compare.

The Holy Spirit teaches.

Technology can help me explore what the Holy Spirit taught us through the Bible.

Discernment belongs in my relationship with God,

grounded in Scripture,

and centered on Jesus Christ.

I Tried to Prove the Bible Wrong

I began this journey as a skeptic.

A pastor, who became a dear friend, told me that he believed the Bible was God's Word, and that it was 100% trustworthy.

At the time,

I was just beginning to leave behind decades of agnosticism.

My reaction was essentially:

“We'll see about that.”

So I searched through the whole bible, studying topics that are discussed.

I compared passages.

I compared themes.

I looked for contradictions.

I followed ideas from one end of Scripture to the other.

I wasn't trying to prove my pastor right.

I was trying to prove him wrong.

That's probably not the testimony normally printed on the front of the church bulletin.

Yet something unexpected happened.

The more I searched,

the more connections I found.

And one theme kept appearing again and again:

Listen to God.

Hear God.

Seek God.

Wait upon God.

Walk by the Spirit.

Receive wisdom.

Discern spiritual things.

Obey.

Serve.

Suddenly, what I understand as Centering Prayer, wasn't confined to one verse.

I began seeing its biblical foundation woven throughout Scripture.

Bible Study and Centering Prayer Became Partners

For me,

Bible study and Centering Prayer began working together.

Centering Prayer gives me the quietness to ask.

Scripture gives me truth to test the things that I believe I'm receiving.

Research helps me explore.

The Holy Spirit teaches.

Jesus remains at the center.

That order matters.

My computer doesn't replace prayer.

My database doesn't replace Jesus.

And AI certainly doesn't become the fourth member of the Trinity.

It is simply a tool.

A very useful tool,

especially when you are searching a book that averages over 800,000 words in most translations.

But it is still a tool.

Jesus Opens Minds

One of my favorite verses is Luke 24:45:

“Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

I love that.

The disciples already had the Scriptures.

Jesus did not hand them a new book.

He opened their minds.

That's what I want.

I don't merely want more biblical information.

I want understanding.

I want Jesus to help me perceive what I could not perceive before.

I want the Holy Spirit to teach me.

I want my heart to remain open enough to say:

“Perhaps there is something here I do not understand yet.”

That requires childlike humility.

And sometimes humility is simply admitting that God may know something I don't.

I am thankful that God's love is so great, that He forgives my silly arrogance.

Eyes That See

So today,

when Jesus asks whether I have eyes that see and ears that hear,

I no longer automatically answer:

“Of course! My ophthalmologist says everything looks great.”

Instead,

I ask:

“Lord, is my heart open enough to perceive what You are trying to teach me?”

That is one reason I practice Centering Prayer.

I become still.

I set aside my assumptions.

I study Scripture.

I listen.

I discern.

And I ask Jesus to open my mind

just as He opened the minds of His disciples.

The Greatest Blindness

Perhaps the greatest spiritual blindness isn't being unable to see with our eyes.

Perhaps it is believing:

what our physical eyes can see, is all there is to see.

And perhaps the greatest spiritual deafness isn't being unable to hear sounds.

Perhaps it is being surrounded by so much noise that we never become quiet enough to hear with our hearts.

Our television is talking.

Our cellphone is talking.

Our computer is talking.

News commentators are talking.

Advertisements are talking.

Everybody on social media appears to be talking.

And then we ask:

“Why can't I hear God?”

Perhaps God doesn't need a bigger amplifier.

Perhaps we need a quieter room.

Centering Prayer Begins There

Jesus told His disciples:

“Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”

That is the kind of sight I want.

That is the kind of hearing I want.

Not merely physical.

Spiritual.

I want a heart that can listen.

A mind that can understand.

A spirit that can discern.

And a will humble enough to obey.

So every morning,

Centering Prayer begins again with a simple prayer:

“Jesus, I'm listening.”

“Open my heart.”

“Open my mind.”

“How may I serve You today?”

Then I become still.

I stop expecting God to shout through my ears.

I stop demanding that the spiritual world become visible to my eyes.

I remember Jesus' words:

“understand with their hearts.”

And I listen.

Because perhaps God has been much closer than we realized.

Perhaps His Spirit has been teaching,

calling,

guiding,

and inviting us all along.

The question is not simply:

“Do my ears work?”

The question is:

“Is my heart listening?”

Chapter 15

“Yes, Lord —Anything.”

When Jesus Asks, “Anything?”

Learning to Surrender, Listen, and Answer “Yes, Sir.”

The Ascension of Jesus is one of the most powerful passages in Scripture for understanding what I believe Centering Prayer is really about.

These final scenes are not simply the closing chapter of Jesus’earthly ministry.

They are a doorway into the spirit world.

Jesus has risen.

He appears to His disciples, and they know He’s a spirit.

He speaks to them about the Kingdom of God.

He promises the Holy Spirit.

He prepares them to continue His work.

Then He is taken from their sight.

But before we go any further,

there is something extraordinary in Luke that we should not miss.

“Peace Be With You”

After His resurrection,

Jesus suddenly appears among His disciples and says:

“Peace be with you.”

They are terrified.

They think they are seeing a ghost.

Honestly,

if someone I had watched die suddenly appeared in the room,

I am not sure my first response would be:

“Wonderful. Please have a seat.”

The disciples were startled.

They doubted.

They needed reassurance.

Jesus gave it to them.

Then He did something that has become extremely important to my understanding of Centering Prayer:

Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, Luke 24 says that:

“He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

Think about that.

The Scriptures were already there.

The words had not changed.

Their understanding changed.

That matters enormously to me.

I do not want merely to read words about God.

I want Jesus to open my heart and mind so I can understand what those words mean for the way I live.

I want to listen.

I want to surrender.

I want to serve.

That is Centering Prayer as I have come to understand it.

From Seeing Jesus to Serving Jesus

Acts tells us that Jesus appeared to His disciples over a period of forty days

and:

“spoke about the Kingdom of God.”

Then He told them something extremely important:

“Wait.”

Do not rush out and try to accomplish the mission through your own strength.

The Holy Spirit would come upon them.

Then they would receive power to become His witnesses.

That pattern speaks deeply to me:

I must listen before acting.

I must receive before giving.

I must let God lead before deciding where I am going.

That is almost the exact opposite of how I lived for seventy years.

For most of my life,

my management structure was very simple:

Bill makes the plans.

Bill executes the plans.

Bill worries about the plans.

Bill makes new plans when the old plans fail.

It was a remarkably efficient system for producing stress.

Centering Prayer reversed the organization chart.

Now I begin with:

“God, what are Your plans?”

“How may I serve You today?”

That is a radically different way to live.

“The Lord Worked With Them”

Mark gives us another beautiful detail.

Jesus tells His followers:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Then Jesus is taken into heaven.

The disciples go out.

They preach.

They serve.

But the final verse says:

“the Lord worked with them.”

I love that.

They worked.

Jesus worked with them.

That is exactly how I understand service in Christ’s Kingdom.

We do not replace Jesus.

We do not become Jesus.

We do not manufacture God’s power ourselves.

We serve.

Jesus leads.

We listen.

Jesus teaches.

We obey,

and the Lord will work with each of us.

Jesus works through His people according to His will.

That is why Centering Prayer is not merely meditation to me.

It is preparation for service.

Stop Staring at the Sky

There is another part of the Ascension story that makes me smile.

Jesus is taken up.

A cloud hides Him from their sight.

And the disciples just stand there...

staring into the sky.

I probably would have been right there with them.

After all,

if you just watched Jesus disappear into a cloud,

clearing the afternoon schedule seems perfectly reasonable.

Then two men dressed in white appear and ask:

“Why do you stand here looking into the sky?”

That question has become tremendously meaningful to me.

I do not want to spend my life staring upward for Jesus

while overlooking the Holy Spirit’s presence, thats here and now,

and Christ’s call to serve today.

Jesus had already given the disciples their assignment.

The question was not:

How long can you stare at the clouds?

The question was:

Will you obey?

The Kingdom Needs Love Today

For me,

the Christian life is not primarily about waiting for the day when I might begin serving Christ.

The Kingdom calls me today.

Someone needs love today.

Someone needs forgiveness today.

Someone needs kindness today.

Someone needs encouragement today.

Someone needs to encounter the fruit of the Spirit through one of God’s children today.

That brings me to one of the most important moments of my own life.

The Day I Told Jesus, “Anything”

Early in my walk with Jesus,

I was practicing Centering Prayer during an extremely painful period.

A group I belonged to had turned against me.

I believed people had lied,

cheated,

and acted dishonestly to hurt me.

I felt betrayed.

And I was miserable.

So I carried that pain into prayer.

One evening,

I sat in the back pew of my church,

my head bowed,

quietly practicing Centering Prayer.

And something happened that I still remember vividly.

I experienced an overwhelming sorrow.

I understood it as God allowing me to glimpse,

in some tiny way,

the sorrow caused when His children choose:

greed,

selfishness,

money,

pride,

and their own wills

instead of His love.

Suddenly,

my own hurt looked different.

I had been concentrating on:

how badly they had hurt me.

Now I found myself thinking about:

how much I had hurt God.

That realization broke my heart.

Tears rolled down my face.

And sometime afterward,

during Centering Prayer,

I told Jesus that I would do anything I could to help relieve that sorrow.

Anything.

That is a wonderfully courageous word

when you are the one volunteering it.

Apparently, Jesus noticed.

“Anything?”

The word-thought that came into my mind was a question:

“Anything?”