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| Linda and I vacationed in Cancun last week. We know a lot about each other by taking much time to be with each other. |
Parasite - a person or thing that takes something from someone or something else and does not do anything to earn it or deserve it.
I need my own prayer life, not yours if you have one. It's wonderful that Billy Graham and Mother Teresa and the apostle Paul prayed. I can learn from them. The one thing I can learn from praying people is that I must have much time to pray, myself. The prayer lives of the great saints mean nothing to me if I'm "too busy to pray."
Listen to what Eugene Peterson writes about this:
"I
want to do the original work of being in deepening conversation with the God
who reveals himself to me and addresses me by name. I don't want to dispense
mimeographed hand-outs that describe God's business; I want to witness out of
my own experience. I don't want to live as a parasite on the first-hand
spiritual life of others, but to be personally involved with all my senses,
tasting and seeing that the Lord is good." (The Contemplative Pastor, Kindle Locations 175-178)
Real prayer is non-parasitic. The insights of others are good; personal insights are better, more inspiring, more convincing. I can learn from others about God; I can better learn about God from God himself.
As you pray today you are engaging in original research about God.
