I recently read a tremendous definition of Spirituality. Geoffrey Wainwright says that Spirituality is “praying while living.”
I thank God, and my wife, for giving me a strong sense of the spiritual while also carrying a keen awareness of the practical. One of God’s gifts to me is being able to connect the two. For example, I missed my rather consistent time of prayer yesterday because I was putting the finishing touches on a practical demonstration of care and love.
Today, I am back at it with my prayers and meditation, with an understanding that yesterday’s act of service came out of my best times of prayer and worship. In a sense, I was praying while living and living while praying. I needed that act of service to put my feet to my prayers, my study, and my worship. But acts of service don’t exist in my otherwise selfish heart if I wasn’t working, with God’s help, to transform my self absorbed tendencies through prayer, meditation, study, and confession.
Are you living without praying? Or praying without living? Either way, you are not growing and are staying stagnant.
Let your prayers (or any soul training exercise) inform your living for a richer, deeper, more Christ-filled life while letting your living inform your prayers. This is at the heart of the partnership that you have started with God.
image: National Gallery of Canada (no. 29218)
© Estate of George Rouault / SODRAC (2013)
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