Opening to God

I just finished a book review on Thomas Green's Opening to God. This book was highly recommended to us by our Initiation Year Director, and now after reading it, I would also highly recommend it to anyone who wants to deepen their prayer life, or just trying to even make sense of prayer in their lives.

For a person picking up the book, trying to find a sure-fire way to encounter God, he will be sadly disappointed. Which is why the author devoted the first half of the book, to clarify what prayer is, or more importantly, what it is not. Through his experience giving spiritual direction, he knows the struggles we face in our spiritual journey. Thus in “Part I – The What and Why of Prayer”, he corrects many of the misconceptions and answers many questions that the person in this modern era would face regarding prayer.

After changing the mindset we have in the first part, that prayer is really an encounter with the Lord, and it is a response on our part to His drawing, the author suggests a change in approach. In the second part “The How of Prayer”, instead of the things we should do, he focuses on what we should be: “A better approach would be to define prayer as an opening of the mind and heart to God. Opening stresses receptivity, responsiveness to another.” Using his knowledge from the writings of the masters of prayer, Sts Ignatius, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, he puts it in simple language, that is easily understood by a beginner to prayer.

Personally, reading this book, has given me much to reflect on. I could identify with the person who used to think of prayer in terms of the categories: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. And now as I move from the devotional faith, to discovering the relational aspect of prayer, it has highlighted some stages and difficulties on this journey that I was unaware I had or am going through. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it has reminded me that the growth in my prayer life really requires time and effort. I am reminded once again not to be so impatient, expecting to bear fruits through my own effort, and not to be impatient with a God who cares for me.

The most striking part of the book has to be it’s ending, because it describes how I’m beginning to feel about prayer. That when it seems that we have truly learned how to pray, we are actually “only beginning to discover what the Spirit has to teach us of God – but it is a very good beginning.”

"The image I often use is that of a father and his year-old child. The baby has learned how to crawl, and become a very skilled crawler. Then one day the father decides to carry the baby for a walk. Suddenly the baby sees the world from the father's shoulders and moves with the speed of his father's speed. When they return home, the father puts the baby down on the floor again, and the baby is frustrated because he can only crawl. Now he knows something better is possible, and crawling is no longer satisfying.

It is like that in the early stages of our life in prayer. When we begin to make progress, it is not because we have learned to walk, but because God is carrying us. Like the baby, however, we tend to think we have really accomplished something ourselves.

Prayer becomes a joy and our faults disappear, and we think we have really learnt to walk, but the reality is that our faults have not been eliminated, but merely temporarily masked by God's grace. And when he sets us down again, prayer becomes difficult, and our failings return, and we find ourselves frustrated."

Epilogue - Opening to God

The image of the father carrying the child and walking, and the disappointment when the child is put back down to crawl, encourages me to be aware of that during my own journey, and to carry on relying on God and not be disappointed.