The Soul Room

The real question we all face is: “How do I develop a praying life?” Or, to put it another way, “How do I really know and experience God’s friendship?” I have confessed to you (to my shame) that I tried to be a fully-formed believer without having a “Quiet Time” or “Daily Devotion.” In fact, I still sort of despise those words. Because of my vocation, I am in the Bible all the time. I write sermons, I teach lessons, and I am somewhat “bookish”—I actually like reading theology and pondering the mysteries of God. I am also, by temperament, a “sacramentalist,” meaning I really do “see” God in the good things around me—food, beauty, people. I can experience the power and presence of God mediated through his good gifts to me.The religious culture I was raised in seemed (to me) to cram down my throat the idea that if you read your Bible and prayed every day God would love you more (at least, this is how I heard it, and I confess the fault might be all mine). When God really changed my life in college, I gained a passion for knowing God; I found a hunger to know God and to “think God’s thoughts” after him. My vocation actually paid me a living wage to do this, and I have always been thankful for this blessing. And yet for years, while I taught spiritual formation, I always resisted a habitual time of being with God. I mean, I prayed all the time, along the way, in season and out of season; I was always reading and studying the Bible. And yet…Years ago, I realized the power of habits, rituals, and rhythm. These things help us properly order our loves. St. Augustine said that all sin is about disordered loves. Don’t get me wrong: life is hard and I have experienced my share of it. But I was not born with a wrinkle in my brow and I sort of have a lust for life. My problem is that I can love good things too much, to the point that I neglect other things, and good things become idols. How do we combat that? How do we properly order our loves so that we are disciples of Jesus who love God, love people, and love life? How do we live a robust life and thrive in the midst of cultural ruin (ruin that, I would argue, happens because of disordered loves)?For two thousand years, the ancients have insisted that we develop habits of grace - things we participate in that properly order our loves and lash us to the mast of God’s truth and love. Like Odysseus, we are always in the presence of sirens that are telling us that the “good life” is having the perfect family, or living in the best neighborhood, or having the best career, or having a lot of power. I feel this tug every day. The world around us is competing for our devotion and affection, and it is so tangible and real, while often a life of faith looks quite dull in comparison. So how do we stay alive to God? How do we, as Jeremiah says to God’s ancient people, “build homes and gardens in Babylon?”I’m glad you asked! It is apparently no mystery, if you read about what has formed disciples since Jesus’ time. It comes down to developing your own “habits of grace” and making them a priority. You make them a priority because you know that, without them, you are far too sinful to resist all the things around you competing for your time, talents, money, and love. If you have been at St. Patrick long, you’ve heard us talk about this before. I’m talking about habits like spending time in prayer, worship, being committed to a community, Sabbath, culture making, etc. These are all necessary, not just when you feel like it, but as a part of the normal, mundane rhythms of weekly and everyday life. And, as Josh would say, “The crown jewel of these habits is what we call ‘The Soul Room.’”The Soul Room is the habit of meeting with God daily for prayer and communion with him. The heartbeat of a praying life is in learning a vocabulary of prayer and discovering how to bring your heart to God just as you are––not how you want to be, but as you are…broken, needy, sinful, hopeful, sad, lonely, or afraid. It is learning to bring your deepest feelings and needs to God and to be fully known in his presence. Nothing in the entire Bible will help you with this like the Psalms. The Psalms are the prayer book of the church. Because God speaks to us primarily through his Living Word, the Bible, you need to prayerfully expose yourself to God’s truth all the time.This is such a priority to the leadership at St. Patrick that we (mostly Josh, Will, and their band of techno-wizards) have developed “The St. Patrick Soul Room.” It is a five-day-a-week schedule of prayers and Bible lessons that “…cover the entire Old Testament in three years, the New Testament every year, and the Psalms five times every three years. But the point really isn't to read through the whole Bible (although that’s a great goal). The point is to join together with the Spirit and the Bride, learning to pray along with the language of Scripture.” (Josh Smith)This daily guide of scripture and prayers will come in your email, on the website, or on our St. Patrick app. It follows the pattern of the Daily Office, and it will launch the first Monday of Advent, December 3. We have a conviction that each of us needs to develop a praying life individually, but also, imagine the power of reading and praying with a whole community, so that our conversation about what God is saying to us, convicting us of, and encouraging us in, is all centered around the same scripture? It might be glorious! Our staff and Session have already begun to center our devotional lives around the same scripture, and it has been amazing to see how God has worked. I can only imagine how he will for us as a whole people, helping us to become better disciples of Jesus who love God, love people, and love life!