Prayer of the Heart

The Concept

“It is the heart that prays, it is to the voice of the heart that God listens and it is the heart that he answers.”
- Jean-Nicholas Grou

Early Christian writers spoke of three stages of prayer:

• prayer of the lips (purgative)
• prayer of the mind (illuminative), and
• prayer of the heart (unitative).

When our hearts pray, we have entered a realm where the Holy Spirit is the initiator, the Holy Spirit creates the prayer, and the Holy Spirit sustains it. When words fall short of our prayers, the Holy Spirit prays deep within our hearts for us (Rom. 8:26). The Prayer of the Heart calls us to an intimacy that words will fail.

The way this prayer expresses itself within you is unique and individual, though there are some classic ways the Spirit speaks through the heart. There is the quickening of the spirit--an impression about a scripture we are reading or a word we are hearing. There is speaking in tongues--a release of our spirit into the Spirit of God where words go beyond the rational into the inexpressible heavenlies. There is an inexplicable peace--a rest of the spirit where the shalom of God settles upon you. There is a subtle warming of the spirit toward the things of God; there is an ecstatic overwhelming feeling of being in love with God. No matter how it is experienced, this type of prayer is less about expression and more about reception, more about being acted upon and less about conscious participation.

Prayer of the Heart is not by our own initiation, so there are no techniques to experience the prayer; rather there are patterns of living that bring us closer to God. When we have the pattern of a familiar personal history with the Father, when we are listening to the response of hearts to his overwhelming goodness, then we are in a position of openness to the Spirit moving within us.

As a beginning, simply ask God to kindle a fire of love within you, especially if you have a tendency to over-intellectualize. Foster writes: “The love of the Father is like a sudden rain shower that will pour forth when you least expect it, catching you up in to wonder and praise and unspeakable speech. When this happens, do not put up an umbrella to protect yourself but rather stand in the drenching rain of the Father.”

The Experience

Once again, this prayer topic was timely in my life, reminding me of God's sweet and faithful pursuit of my whole heart.

I was reading a secular novel, and when the protagonists finally admitted their love, my heart leaped within me. It reminded me how my heart raced while I was dating my husband. And, I had never put it together before, but that leap of my heart is the same feeling I get when I hear the Lord speak to me directly. I realized his language is love, and such a greater more constant love than I could read about in a book or even feel for another human being. This seemingly trivial understanding connected what could have easily become a cerebral exercise for me to an inexplicable and authentic physical reaction that can't be conjured or replicated.

See, I am ruled by my desire to understand. I cannot accept things I haven't yet proven to myself. But this is not how faith works; this is not how love works. So, step by step, the Lord is breaking me of my dependence on my mind, of my need for intellectual control, of my pride in my own understanding. But even in this, I am acknowledging what is needed, but until I surrender completely even to that understanding, I will not move beyond the "prayer of the mind" to the "prayer of the heart."

This past week, first at a conference and then at church, there have been teachings on the Holy Spirit and the power he wants to release within his people. While usually closed off to this kind of teaching, this prayer study has me open with a desire to set my heart on fire. So I heard with ears that hear. I am being asked to surrender to the abundant life I am promised, to surrender to true intimacy with the Father. I am being asked to pursue God-directed action, to allow awkward moments to stay on course with pure obedience and without fear.

I have never before pursued speaking in tongues, even avoided thinking about it, but now I desire a prayer language, a vehicle to escape my insistence on correct words and let my heart pour out without the assistance of my brain.

So for me, this Prayer of the Heart is a beginning. It is me willing to subdue my head, to sacrifice my will and my expectations, to plead with the Lord of my heart to kindle a flame that I cannot contain within me.

The Prayer of Relinquishment

The Concept

The Prayer of Relinquishment is an ongoing process. A daily (even moment-by-moment!) sacrifice of our own will to the will of God. We are changed little by little by the daily crucifixion of our will. Once we have abandoned our own agendas and acknowledged our hopelessness, we are in a position to fully receive what the Father has for us in abundance. New graces emerge: joy at the success of others, freedom from the burden of having to get our own way. Deeper intimacy with God overflows from our deeper dependency on God.

Such surrender will involve inner struggle. Foster explains: “to applaud the will of God, to do the will of God, even to fight for the will of God is not difficult … until it comes at cross-purposes with our will. Then the lines are drawn, the debate begins, and the self-deception takes over.” But struggle is part of the process. Struggle acknowledges that we are not fatalistically resigned to God's superior power, but that God actually invites us into true dialog with him. His desire is that we accept his will out of our trust in his love and wisdom and goodness.

Relinquishment knows the burden of unanswered prayer, but lays down (even distrusts) our own desires in favor of complete submission to God's will and timing. In the Bible, we see model figures with this same struggle of wills. Abraham relinquishes his son, Paul his desire to be free of his “thorn in the flesh,” and Jesus relinquishes his right to life in the garden of Gethsemane.

Sometimes, as with Isaac, God asks us to relinquish something, then gives it back to us. But this is not always the case. Still, what we relinquish, we can relinquish with the assurance of hope. Crucifixion always has resurrection tied to it. By default, “we hold on so tightly to the good that we do know that we cannot receive the greater good that we do not know." But we have to release our tiny vision in order to experience God's complete picture.

In formal practice, this prayer can be asking the Holy Spirit to apply relinquishment to the specifics of your day, asking the Father to make his will our consuming concern, asking Jesus to specify the areas of your heart that need to be laid at his feet. All day, “wait quietly, listen carefully, obey immediately.” The end result of relinquishment (certainly not the process) is a restful abiding in the Lord, a settled peace in the certainty of his control.

The Experience

At first I thought this would be an easy exercise. I have had spontaneous moments of relinquishment in my walk with God, and each stands out as an altar moment when I look back. I thought I would write about those, but instead I felt the Lord asking me to pray it now, and I protested. For almost a week, I kept putting it off, making excuses, literally resisting entering into a position of relinquishment.

I learned from that very resistance why this prayer needs to be a daily attitude. I am not talking about liturgically entering into “I surrender x, I surrender y, etc.” as a daily recitation, for then that very powerful exercise loses its punch. But certainly, when you feel that rebel flag going up at the knowledge of God's will, you best hit the deck!

I realized the truth in the prayer Foster put at the end of this chapter:

Oh, Lord, how to I let go when I'm so unsure of things? I'm unsure of your will, and I'm unsure of myself. … That really isn’t' the problem at all, is it? The truth of the matter is I hate the very idea of letting go. I really want to be in control. No, I need to be in control. I am afraid to give up control. Heal my fear, Lord.

So yesterday I knelt on the floor and approached a very intentional prayer of surrender. Once I made the choice to do so, my heart opened, words just flowed, and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of freedom. For me, the struggle was the choice, not the execution. I surrendered specific things in my life and named him Lord over them. I surrendered my desires for productivity and named him Lord of my schedule. I surrendered anxiousness over lost family members and named him Lord of the gospel. I surrendered my self-righteous excuses and named him Lord over my salvation. I surrendered the prayer itself, and named him the Truth behind the words.

Such a prayer is cleansing. It is deliverance, not from oppressive spirits or forces, but from idols I have set up in my heart and deliverance from the constraints of my own mind that keep me from true life and true intimacy with Abba, Father.