Do Things That Help You Love God

It is my dream to have an herb garden in my backyard. I would love to be able to walk back and easily snip off some basil for my pasta or some rosemary for my focaccia bread! There is one main thing standing in the way of me growing a garden: I don’t know how! (And, I suppose my perfectionism and fear of failure are in there too).

Jesus uses a garden metaphor to talk about building a prayer life. He says:

To abide is the Hebrew word meno, which means “to stay, remain, live, dwell, abide.” Many of us want to do this, but we don’t know how. “Abiding” is such an intuitive concept — what does it look like? Does it take hours? Days? Is it just a Christian word for self-care? Do I have to become a monk or a pastor to abide? Or, do I just keep doing what I’m already doing and call it “abiding” instead of allowing the word to challenge and push me to something new?

I would love to offer some thoughts around three ways to practically do this, with help from one my prayer heroes — Teresa of Avila. I think there are at least three keys to abiding:

1. Do Things That Help You Love God

The mystics refer to this as the via positiva, or the positive way. Teresa of Avila encourages her nuns that, in prayer:

Practically, this means doing things that help you love God.

What is that for you? Is it listening to worship music, going on walks, reading the Bible, or poetry? Often, we have to get over that “should” voice that says that prayer “should” look like something, and instead, pay attention to how God uniquely wired us to stir our hearts to love. I would love to challenge us to do at least one thing today that stirs our hearts to love God!

2. When You Feel God’s Love for You, Stay There

This is the other side of the via positiva coin — when you feel God’s affection towards you or genuine desire for God, stop! Because of our post-enlightenment skepticism of emotion, we can be hesitant to focus on emotions in our prayer lives. Yet, emotion is a healthy and vital part of any relationship, including with the Lord.

Sometimes God’s love for us (or our love for God) is simply experienced as a desire to pray. One thing that has transformed my personal prayer life is attempting to stop and pray whenever I feel that stirring — no matter how small. Instead of thinking “I’ll do that later,” I try to stop and do it then — no matter who I am with. This has become an a fun way to invite my kids into a lifestyle of prayer!

3. Don’t Do Anything That Keeps You from Loving God

This is what the mystics call the via negativa, or the negative way. If something moves our hearts away from God — whether it be gossip, unbelief, fear, anxiety, etc. — we must learn to give it a wholehearted “no” for the sake of keeping our hearts alive and in love with God.

“Sin” can be defined as anything that we love more than God, and it is essential in building a prayer life to learn how to let our “yes” to God’s love in prayer burn brighter than any other love in our life — even the good ones.

This is, of course, easy to say and yet can take a lifetime to learn.

I’d love to invite us to pray today from Paul’s words:

Lord, would you help me to abide today? Would you direct my heart into your love, help me to notice what draws me closer to You, and run from the things (even good things) that are pulling me away?