Prayer: Reflections for Lent - Yoga

Most people associate yoga with sweat, butts in faces, and maybe farts. We in the West have no idea. 

Yoga is an ancient practice originating from the Hindu religions of India. The word yoga comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “to yoke” or “to link.” Think yoking, like Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you.” The whole point of yoga is to be linked and yoked - mind to body, thinking self to the true or inner Self, human to the Ultimate Power, to God. 

In the West, we think of yoga as physical, something you do in workout clothes at the gym. But this is only a small part of what yoga actually is.

Yoga is a collection of “spiritual disciplines designed to clear the mind and support a state of serene, detached awareness . . . [and] balance, purity, wisdom, and peacefulness of mind." 

There are four basic types of yoga, or paths: raja, jnana, karma, and bhakti. 

Raja yoga is the path of mental concentration, or meditation. An ancient teacher of yoga describes eight “limbs” of yogic practice including moral codes, physical conditioning, breath control, concentration, meditation, and a “state of peaceful absorption.” The first limb, moral and ethical principles, are similar to what is found in spiritual paths worldwide - truth and honesty, not stealing, not coveting, devotion to God, and others. The second limb, physical conditioning, refers to asanas, or poses. This is what we Westerners usually think of when we think yoga. The other limbs refer to breathing, mantras, and other tools to focus concentration. 

It’s important to realize that at it’s core, yoga is for the mind and spirit - not the body. We often reduce yoga to a physical exercise, but in fact the physical portion is just a tool to achieve mental concentration, spiritual wisdom, and connection to the divine. 

Jnana yoga is the path of “rational inquiry.” While raja yoga attempts to transcend our rational mind to receive spiritual enlightenment, jnana yoga uses the mind as a tool to gain spiritual knowledge. This might be compared to philosophical or apologetic endeavors in Christianity. 

Karma yoga is the path of “helpful action in the world.” The two previous paths, raja and jnana, have been inward paths focusing on meditation and the self to gain enlightenment. Karma yoga grows closer to the divine by helping others. Mother Teresa is famous for acknowledge that she serves not the poor of Calcutta, but “Jesus in his most distressing disguise.” She knew that every action to those around her were actions done to Jesus - that is the path of karma yoga. 

Bhakti yoga is the path of personal devotion, and the most common among Hindus. This pathos one where the human is completely in love with and utterly devoted to a deity. One Hindu poem reads: “Thy Name is beautiful, The form is beautiful, and very beautiful is Thy love, Oh my Omnipresent Lord.” In this path, “the devotee’s whole being is surrendered to the deity in love.” This reminds me of the Hebrew “Song of Songs,” when it is interpreted as a song between the Lord and humanity, or of nuns who consecrate themselves as being “married to Jesus.” This is the path we follow when we sing songs of love and devotion:

“Heaven meets earth like a passionate kiss, and my heart beats violently inside of my chest, and I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.”  

“Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of God - it chases me down, fights till I’m found.”  

“Jesus, we love you, oh how we love you. You are the one our hearts adore. . . . Our affection, our devotion, poured out on the feet of Jesus.” 

“How we love you, how we love you, how we want you, how we want you. . . . Your love we can no longer keep inside. It’s opened up our eyes; It makes us want to sing.”

As we can see, these three yogic paths - jnana, karma, and bhakti - have parallels which we are familiar with. Thus, I will focus now on the spiritual discipline of raja yoga. We are familiar with the first limb, the moral codes. In the West, our religions certainly require certain moral action. 

We don’t often think about how the asanas (poses), breathing exercises, and mantras can be used to facilitate connection to the Divine. And truthfully, I don’t know if I can explain how this happens. Maybe that’s something that I love about it - I don’t know how it works but I know that it does. I know that when I do sun salutations in the morning, my mood is lifted. I know that when I take time to be still, I touch something deep inside of me that is the same essence of that which is central to the soul of the Universe (wow, sounds wacky). But really, when I engage in this practice, I’m surrendered. I can’t push my body to do things it can’t do, and there’s no reason to. This is an exercise in radical acceptance - of my body, of my self, of my circumstances, of the people around me, of the world. This is a place for me to acknowledge that I am not in control - and come to terms with that. The long inhales and exhales slow my heart rate, slow my thoughts, slow my anxieties. It allows me to let go of my worries and hand them off to the Person who “will generously provide all [I] need” (2 Cor 9:8). 

I know that sometimes I wake up and I don’t know what to pray. I feel lost and broken and without words. So I sit cross-legged and say to the Almighty, “Lord, here I am. Surrendered.” And then I proceed to use this body that is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” and breathe this breath that is not mine but belongs to every living being collectively. I am connected to everything else by this breath, which comes into my lungs after being used by someone else, and which will leave my lungs to give life to someone else. This practice reminds me that we are all One. This life force, this breath, this ruach - it comes to me from the Divine. It connects me to the infinite, it connects everyone else to the infinite, and it connects all of us to one another. 

With this humbling reminder, with this use of my body for something good and beautiful, I am calmed. I have prayed, I have connected with the Divine, and I have been changed by the encounter. 

All quotes are from Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions.

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This post is the second in a series, Prayer: Reflections for Lent, which explores prayer in a variety of ways. Click below to read previous posts: 

Part 1: A Story, a Goal, and a Plan 

Part 2: A Path of Prayer

Part 3: Using a Journal

Come back on Thursdays during Lent for the next post! 

Prayer: Reflections for Lent - Using a Journal

I am a huge fan of the prayer journal. As I wrote in the intro to this series, a prayer journal was the way I started praying. I am a writer, and it’s much easier for me to write to God (or anyone else) than to have to say words out loud. A pen and a page is my comfort and security. 

Over the years, I’ve used prayer journals in three ways. I’ll write about each of them briefly. 

The first prayer journal I had was simply a collection of prayers. I was raised Methodist, and we prayed the Lord’s Prayer each Sunday in service. 

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,      on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses      as we forgive those who trespass against us, And lead us not into temptation      but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,      and the power,           and the glory forever. Amen.

(Sidenote: If you look, you’ll notice that Jesus here uses a PATH or ACTS pattern of prayer. He begins by naming and describing who God is, praise and adoration - Father in heaven, holy are you. Then he goes on to ask for help, or supplicate - thy will be done, give us bread, forgive us, help us forgive others, keep us from sin. We talked about these patterns of prayer in a previous post.)

My first prayer journal included some of my grandmother’s Catholic prayers, too:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,World without end. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.Blessed art thou among women,and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.Holy Mary, Mother of God,pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Later, I prayed using the Upper Room devotional and I would write the provided prayers as a letter to God in my prayer journal.

If you’re interested in a prayer journal like this, you can find pre-written prayers al over the place. Just google, and you’ll likely find a prayer for every situation you could imagine. 

Another fabulous place to look for pre-written prayers is scripture itself. The book of Psalms is a collection of ancient hymns (ever noticed that the word “psalm” sounds a lot like “song”? Yeah, that’s a linguistic connection). When you don’t know what to pray, the Psalms are an excellent resource for joining yourself with a great legacy of faith. There are also prayers scattered throughout the Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants that you could use verbatim or alter to suit your needs. The Quran also includes many passages of prayer. What’s so great about these is that you’re not praying alone, but joining with thousands of even millions of other people praying just as you are. 

When it came time to pray - morning, evening, lunch, whenever - I would find the prayer that was appropriate. This type of prayer journal was immensely helpful when I didn’t know what to pray. 

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Once I became somewhat comfortable with the idea of praying, I would use my journal as a place to write personal letters. I’d write my prayers (Dear God, . . . ) but I wrote my own words. I’d sometimes still go for the PATH/ACTS formula. Other times I’d write like I was writing to a friend from summer camp, simply telling God what’s going on in my life, how I was feeling, what I was looking forward to, and asking for help with things. 

I did this during what I would call my strongest period of prayer. This was during my first year in college, when I was investigating the LDS church. I would wake up each morning, get dressed, and walk to the cafeteria. I’d start my time with a short, simple prayer in my mind, thanking God for my food, asking a blessing upon it, and asking for the Holy Ghost to be with me as I read and prayed. Then, I would read as I ate. I always started with a Psalm or Proverb - something to remind me how to pray or how to live. Then, I’d read through a few chapters, usually in the Book of Mormon. After reading and eating, I’d write. I’d thank God for what was going on, I’d pray for help implementing the things I’d learned during my scripture study, and I’d ask a blessing upon my day. I treasured this morning time with God. And I dreaded when anyone wanted to stop by to say hello in the cafeteria! 

If you’re unsure about the whole praying-out-loud thing, I’d recommend writing prayers as a starting point. 

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The final way of using a prayer journal is one I just recently learned about and began utilizing. It’s not better or worse than any of the others, just different. I was inspired to follow this method after hearing from a local preacher and from Alyssa Joy Bethke (married to Jefferson Bethke, whom you might know from this video).

In this way, I have separated sections for each part of prayer. I pray along a sort of PATH/ACTS pattern. I have a page with a list of who God is - merciful, generous, judge, redeemer. Then, I have a list of what God does - You hear my cry, You protect me, You are making me new. Both of these are based on what I read in scripture, hear in songs, and experience in my daily life. Next, I have a (very short) list of things to thank God for. Finally, I have a list of people to pray for by name - my family, friends, coworkers, a child I sponsor through Compassion International. I also have a list of personal requests - things I’m asking God for myself, rather than prayers for others. I ask God to help me love others, to know what to do, to bless my work, and more. 

This is the method I’m using right now. Each morning, I begin my time with a Psalm, one of those ancient prayers that have been spoken to God for thousands of years. Then, I read in the scripture (right now I’m reading through the New Testament, then I’ll go through the Book of Mormon). After that, I have a daily devotional that was given to me - Tozer on the Almighty God. This book has a verse, an excerpt from the writing of Tozer, and a simple prayer (to be honest, I’m not crazy about it, but I’m giving it a go since I received it from a friend). Once I’m done reading, I kneel to pray. I go through my journal, praising God for who God is and what God does, thank God for what God has provided for me, and humbly asking God to bless myself and the people in my life.

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The prayer journal has been the most important and influential tool for prayer in my life. If you aren’t praying, if you feel like you don’t know how to pray, if you want to start a daily habit of prayer, or if you’re looking for a way to improve your prayer time, I highly recommend trying a journal! 

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This post is the second in a series, Prayer: Reflections for Lent, which explores prayer in a variety of ways. Click below to read previous posts: 

Part 1: A Story, a Goal, and a Plan 

Part 2: A Path of Prayer

Come back on Thursdays during Lent for the next post! 

Prayer: Reflections for Lent - A Path of Prayer

My life has been shaped by one extremely influential mentor. If I was Samuel, she was Eli. For years she taught me how to serve and how to discern the Lord’s voice. 

She made sure I knew I was loved by God. When I came to her, panicked because I didn’t know if I was “saved,” she stopped right there and prayed with me. When I joined the LDS church, she stood with me wholeheartedly. She gave me my first real job and taught me to be confident in my abilities.

But before all that, she taught me how to pray. She first taught me using the PATH method of prayer. It’s so easy to remember, it’s stuck with me since. PATH is an acronym, standing for Praise, Adoration, Thanksgiving, and Help. I’ll share some thoughts and insights I’ve gained about this method and each of its parts as I’ve used it.

We begin prayer like Jesus did, always praising and thanking God before asking. The purpose of this is not to remind God who God is, but primarily to remind US of who God is. Beginning prayer with praise, adoration, and thanksgiving puts us in the correct mindset. We are awed by God’s majesty and we are filled with hope because of who God is and what God has done for us in the past. 

Praise is to “express warm approval or admiration of.” When we praise God, we say, “God, You’re great!” Another dictionary defines praise as “to glorify (a god or saint) especially by the attribution of perfections.” God, You are perfect in Love, perfect in Creating, perfect in forgiving, perfect in hearing us. 

If we think about how we commonly use the word praise, we think of praising people for things. We praise actors for superb performances in films, we praise singers for moving performances on stage, we praise painters for exquisite works of art in museums. We praise politicians for enacting fair and just policies, we praise juries for demanding justice. We praise people for what they do. And I think it’s beneficial to think of praising God using this comparison.

In praise, we thank God for what God does: God, I praise You because You are working in me and making me new, I praise You because You hear my cries, I praise You because You protect me from harm, I praise You because You provide for my needs.

This is different from adoration, where we simply adore God for who God is. “I will worship You for who You are,” Hillsong Worship sings. In adoration, we simply stand (or sit or kneel) in awe of who God is. God is powerful, just, mighty, fair. God is a rock, a fortress, a safe place. God is mindful, God is merciful, God is gracious, God is extravagantly generous to us. God is “my author, my maker, my ransom, my savior, my refuge, my hiding place. You’re my helper, my healer, my blessed redeemer, my answer my saying grace. You’re my hope in the shadows, my strength in the battle, my anchor for all my days” (Worthy of Your Name, Passion). 

After praising and adoring, we thank. We thank God for all that we have and all that God has done for us. We are profoundly grateful and we express that gratitude to the Source of all that we have. 

Then, we are finally positioned to ask for help. A proverb says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” This is true because when we delight in the Lord, His desires become our desires. Since His will always comes to pass, our desires will be given in that way. Beginning prayer with praise, adoration, and thanksgiving is a way to delight in the Lord. After we have done that, we’ve invited the inspiration of the Spirit and can better know what to ask for. 

Prayer is a time to be filled with God’s spirit, That should be one of our primary requests. In the Help portion of prayer, we pour out our hearts to God and seek comfort in His hands. 

We pray for our families, our friends, our churches, our cities, our nations, and our world. We ask God to help us. We ask God to help our world. 

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Another acronym for prayer, similar but not identical, is ACTS. This stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. 

Here, we begin with adoration. We begin by declaring and reminding ourselves how big our God is. God can do anything. 

Then, we move to confession. “We confess that we have not loved you with our whole hearts,” one prayer says. Here we come before a holy God and confess that we are not God. And how freeing it is to not be God. 

Then we give thanks. We thank God. We thank, we thank, we thank. Because nothing we have or are is by our own doing. Everything we have and are is due to God’s grace and mercy on our lives. It’s all chance. So we are grateful, and we express that gratitude. 

Finally, we end again with supplication. The time when we come before the all-powerful, whom we have adored, confessed, and thanked, and humbly ask. We ask for revelation, for strength, for help, for healing. We ask for ourselves and on behalf of our whole world. 

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And then, we listen. 

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This post is the second in a series, Prayer: Reflections for Lent, which explores prayer in a variety of ways. Read Part 1 here. Come back on Thursdays during Lent for the next post!

Prayer: Reflections for Lent - A Story, a Goal, and a Plan

Prayer is something that I often struggle with. 

When I was younger, I never prayed. It just wasn’t something we did except at church. I can remember sitting in a treehouse one summer in Dallas, sent out on assignment to pray and  listen to God. What? I read the Bible instead - something I never did and wasn’t interested in. 

Even though I didn’t practice prayer, I had learned a method of prayer. It’s stuck with me all these years, and it’s a blueprint I use today. As I learned it, this method is called PATH prayer. It’s an acronym reminding us how to pray. Praise, Adoration, Thanksgiving, and Help. We start out with how awesome God is, and then move on towards supplication. 

When I returned to religion after my first period of atheism, I kept a prayer journal. I subscribed to a little devotional magazine called The Upper Room. Each issue includes daily Bible readings, and short reflection written by readers, and a very simple prayer. I would walk to the cafeteria on campus for breakfast and have a date with Jesus, reading the passage and reflection, then copying the prayer word for word in my prayer journal. It was a great start for me.

I got the journal idea from my grandmother. She keeps a prayer journal and writes every morning. I don’t know what she writes, but she’ll use up three pages or more and spend an hour sometimes just writing to God. I thought writing my prayers down, like a letter, might be easier than just “thinking” them (there was no way I’d be praying out loud at that time, by the way). 

After a while, I became more confident in beseeching the Almighty. During my first year of Mormonism, I’d meet Jesus for breakfast still, reading Psalms and a few chapters in the Book of Mormon. Then, I’d write a letter to God from the heart, rather than copying one someone else wrote. By that time, I’d become comfortable kneeling in prayer every evening and telling God about my day. Out loud, unless my roommate was there. 

I prayed regularly, but my relationship with prayer was not always the best. I often felt like I was talking to a wall. I often felt uninspired, like my prayers didn’t matter or weren’t being heard. I usually prayed anyway, begging God to show me that I was being heard. 

In spring 2016, I lost my faith and stopped attending church. I stopped praying, too, because I didn’t believe in God. 

Many months later, when my heart began opening up to the idea of religion again, the first way I prayed was yoga. I’d started doing yoga prior, mostly for the physical benefits I gained as a dancer. But I started doing it as a way to connect to myself, to others, to that Presence that permeates all. I’d start each class with stillness. I set an “intention” - I decided what I was praying for during each session. 

I also was intrigued by the use of prayer beads. I memorized a couple of short prayers - the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and a couple of others I found or wrote. I found a beaded bracelet (a full rosary seemed way too long for me to start out with) and created a pattern to pray. I found this an excellent way to calm and center myself, letting the words of one or two prayers sink deeply into my being. 

When I was ready to worship and pray with a community again, I attended many churches. I was really attracted to methods of reaching God that included my body - things like yoga, prayer beads, kneeling in worship, and others. I attended Catholic mass sometimes, where people kneeled in reverence and asked God for forgiveness. I attended Pentecostal churches sometimes, where people clapped, danced, and lifted their hands to heaven praising and thanking God for forgiving them and doing all kind of other things. I was and am amazed at all the ways that humanity had found to pray. 

Regardless, I haven’t been really disciplined lately about making time to pray alone. Sure, I go to church and I pray with my kids at church and I pray in church services. But outside of church? I prayed close to never. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally watched the film War Room. WOW. Highly recommend. This film inspired and challenged me to really think about my prayer life and what kind of efforts I was making to connect to the Divine. Then, that very same week, the pastor at the church I attend gave a message about spending time with God through prayer. His emphasis: Pray without ceasing. Pray not just in church, not just morning and night, but all the time. 

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The Christian calendar is moving into the season of Lent. Lent is a season of penitence and preparation. Lasting forty days (like the Biblical flood or Jesus’ time in the desert), Lent is a time for us to recenter our priorities. Some people fast during Lent, clearing out space to make room for God. 

In Lent, we have there main focuses:

1. Disciplined walking with Jesus. Lent is the time to reflect on our discipleship and recommit ourselves to spiritual disciplines. 

1. Renewal of the baptismal renunciation of sin and evil. At baptism (certainly in Methodist and LDS churches, possibly others), we take a stand against evil and register ourselves in the fight against sin. We covenant to a life filled with work to eradicate sin in our lives and evil, injustice, oppression, and societal sins in the world. 

1. Daily adherence to Christ. This is more than just following Christ or behaving like a Christian. This is about spending time with Jesus, soaking up Jesus’ being into our souls. This is about loving deeply and looking into the eyes of Jesus to become like him. This is about tying ourselves up in Christ, adoring Christ, and listening purposefully. 

This Lent, I am challenging myself to get serious about prayer. 

Prayer is a spiritual practice, a spiritual discipline. Being disciplined about this will bring rewards as I develop a greater relationship with God and listen. Through prayer, I can receive strength to follow through with other religious disciplines as well. Prayer is the foundation upon which all other disciplines are built.

Prayer is a renunciation of sin and evil. One Muslim wrote regarding the five daily prayers something like, “If you are sincerely praying five times each day, you will not just stand up and sin.” Prayer is a defense against evil. Prayer strengthens us in the fight. When we pray, we receive spiritual aid to fight injustice and oppression. Further, prayer opens the door for instruction on what are to do in this fight. Once again, prayer is the foundation upon which the renunciation of evil is built. Prayer is fundamental and completely necessary. 

Finally, prayer is adhering to Christ. What other way have we to directly experience our Lord? When we read the Bible or stories of saints, we read how God interacted with others, and how they experienced God. In prayer, however, we are directly linked to God - no intermediary. Prayer is a date with Jesus. In prayer we speak to God and we listen to God. In prayer we learn the nature of God and our souls are filled with God’s goodness and life. In prayer we listen purposefully and receive nourishment to go on. Prayer is the foundation for any relationship with the divine. 

Prayer is our foundation. Prayer is the foundation of every spiritual discipline and of the Christian life itself. Prayer is the foundation of the renunciation of sin and evil. Prayer is the foundation of a relationship with the Divine. 

This Lent, I intend to pull out my hammer and work on that foundation.

“And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”

Helaman 5:12

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This post is the first in a series, Prayer: Reflections for Lent, which explores prayer in a variety of ways. Come back on Thursdays during Lent for the next post!