How Far is Far?

Right now the dog is at my feet chewing on her rope, the laundry from the church is in the wash and I've got a good rest of the day ahead. Tomato soup for lunch, study and preparation for the Chronicles of Narnia class tonight that I'm teaching, preparation for the small group I'm leading tomorrow night.

I was reading Evelyn Underhill (excerpts actually, from Devotional Classics) and she wrote, gee, 80 or so years ago about how three faculties (thinking, feeling, acting) go into praying and living out the "spiritual life." It seemed simplistic, which means that it was the hardest thing to do. So I spent some time thinking about what I needed to pray about, and well, I didn't get much past that. I often find that in my prayer my thoughts are jumbled and run from one thing to the next. I hope God doesn't mind. So I went in and out of that kind of prayer, which was really frustrating. Maybe I was still drowsy and not fully awakened, maybe I've just been out of my routine and rhythm, or maybe it was just one of those days and even though God didn't seem close he actually was. You ever have prayers or times like that?

My first thought was, "God I feel distanced from you." But then I realized that was a general statement so I needed to specify. I didn't feel God was far away when we were having some certain conversations at Jane and Jon's in St. Louis. I didn't feel God was far away when we talked to the soldier (see post below). The answer was, I felt far from God as it related to my reading of Scripture, prayer and personal worship. I want to get into a better rhythm and have felt the urge and starting tomorrow will take action.

That's a new kind of thought or two for me. It's not that I segment my life, but that in reality we have so many "tentacles" attaching to God at different places in our life (our personal, our private, our communal, and others) that at times we neglect some connections and they get corroded or become limp from dis-use.