His Unconditional Love

When we first came to God, we came empty-handed, accepting everything He had to offer us by grace. Now God is calling on us to jettison the loads we carry and come to him empty-handed again - humble and repentant. He wants to renew our minds, transform us, and show us how to love Him and our world. We need to come to Him with upturned hands. God's love expressed through us toward Him and toward others is possible, but it's not our love - conditional; it's God's love - unconditional, with no nasty side effects and no strings attached. 

To be healed of all the pain caused by conditional love, we have to set aside all agendas and seek God for Himself.  The prayer of the heart - waiting in stillness and in silence - is truly the only way we can let go of our focus on ourselves and put it on God. It's the only way to find our heart's desire, the rest in His loving presence that He promises.

Jan Harris, Quiet in His Presence 

Little Children

And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 18:3


The mind of a small child is not yet filled with detailed information, responsibilities, or his or her own importance - so it's the heart, not the mind, that draws the child to what is important.

Like the disciples, we have fallen prey to logic. We are so busy with the knowledge of God that we have lost sight of what's important. That's why Jesus said that we need to become like little children. God touches our heart, and our perspective begins to change. Scripture says:  "I will give you a new heart . . . I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). In other words, our hearts will become tender toward God and toward our world. And - just as the words to the song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love say - "love changes everything." Love touches us, and we are changed!

God reaches out to all of us. He calls us to surrender all we know and open our hearts to his transforming love. He knows that the ability of the small child to be totally absorbed by something is what we need to recapture if we are to come to him wholeheartedly. 

When we see our littleness in comparison to God's greatness, then we will humble ourselves and become like little children, welcoming the kingdom of God into our lives. Taking a few minutes each day for the faithful practice of the prayer of love will help us get things in perspective. It transforms us. Our pride and arrogance begin to melt away in the warm glow of God's unconditional love as he draws us, his beloved children, into the family circle of the Trinity.

In the prayer of silence, our tender, loving God holds us close to his heart and immerses us in the mystery of His love. The eyes of our heart will be opened so that we see the Lord who dwells within us. As we see God for who He is, we see ourselves as we truly are - humble, precious, and beloved children of the Father.

Jan Harris, Quiet in His Presence

Silent Prayer

Be still and know that I am God - Psalm 46:10

Contemplative prayer  = being in God's presence without words

darkness = the absence of knowledge

The way to God is through love not knowledge ..............  "It is a darkness of unknowing that lies between you and your God.... He who no one can grasp by knowledge can be embraced by love" (author unknown)

Learn to be at home in this darkness. Paul stated in 1 Cor 13:12 - We see through a glass, darkly....

In our society we worship knowledge - the false god that no one dares attack. It is the greatest obstacle to experiencing the Reality that is beyond our intellect. Until we get a taste of the contemplative wisdom that permeates that Reality, our mind and our ego are the only gods we know. 

Adam and Eve chose to turn their backs on God to pursue knowledge. They chose to worship the false god of knowledge instead of responding to the true God of love. We face the same choice.

No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge. God created us in his image and likeness to love and worship him, the goal of our desire, and that it is He alone who fully satisfies the hunger and longing of our spirit. Our loving God makes Himself available to us through love.

We are drawn by grace to the contemplative work. In other words we are drawn or called by God to the prayer of love, to silent prayer - the prayer of unknowing. We do not choose ourselves; we are chosen. Our part is always to respond. This means that the simple, the ordinary and the uneducated - in other words, most of the world's population - can have a relationship with this marvelous God for whom love is ALL. No one is left out; everyone can approach God, for we all come clothed, not in knowledge but in love.

There is a stream of love that flows continuously between God the Father and Jesus the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit ................... step into it.

(excerpts from Quiet in His Presence by Jan Harris)