Imagine a conversation with someone you love, about something you care deeply for. You talk, then, at some moment, there’s no more to say. Then, later, you realize there is more to say. The “more” may be some subtle change of expression, or something to say more clearly. When is a conversation really over? Only when the friends are satisfied, when the two hearts are clear of the burden of that matter.
This is what prayer is.
I say “heart” instead of “mind” because often the heart feels a weight, a pressure, a burden before the mind knows what it is. The mind articulates. As soon as the mind provides words for the pressure
Problem: No-one knows what a clear heart feels like from their natural experience. Almost everyone experiences an unclear heart as normal.
What are signs of a clear heart?
Absolute, perfect rest. Nothing left to say (in a good sense, not a bad sense)
Not a dead conversation, just not yet further developed.
Unclear heart: not necessarily a sensation of bad, no confession necessarily needed. We’re not talking about sin (see Jesus in Gethsemane).
When the conscience is troubled, all the weight on the heart is obscured. When the conscience is not troubled by any matter, the heart may be said to be pure, but it may not yet be clear.
The conscience must be cleared first, but realize that a quiet conscience is no sign of a clear heart.
Often the Holy Spirit will unclear the heart — not by the conviction of sin, but by the revealing of a new matter for conversation. In some church circles, one form of this is called a “burden”. This is a misleading term, but at least the old-timers had a term.
It is important NOT to accept burdens from any other source than the Holy Spirit. There is a type of temperament that can “pick up burdens” from other people. This is simply a hypersensitivity to human distress. The sensitivity is not in itself a bad thing, but like all other aspects of the soul must be brought under the discipline of submission to the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to percieve a human distress; it is quite another thing to do anything whatsoever with that perception. The adept man will have both operations under Holy Spirit discipline.
In almost all cases what is needed to clear the heart is simply further prayer.
Just like, in a conversation, pauses, then further words.
“I have something else to say”
Again, “imagine a conversation…”
Stages:
- Learn what is actually on your heart
Many people need to talk their way to the bottom, most authentic layer
Signal: passion is triggered?
- Learn what is a Clear heart
- Habitual enough that Clear Heart reads like normal AND WE LOVE IT
Habitual Clear Heart senses smaller and smaller movements
Holy Spirit’s movement in the heart is extremely small
Holy Spirit moves in the heart of every believer all the time
- The slightest weight is an urge to pray, to get back to Clear Heart
- Many small repetitions, with subtle advances in the conversation each time
I’m convinced most believers stop too soon on most issues
Or, build prayers to be slightly more pious than their real condition
Implications: whatever is ON the heart is the prayer of the day
Authenticity in prayer (cf. Jesus in Gethsemane)
Does no good to construct a prayer between yourself and God which is not about what is on your heart. What is on the heart cannot be repressed for long, and there is no point in it. It is sad to say, but much of what we call Christian living is just repressing the heart. The heart must be un-repressed so that it can be WROUGHT, or changed.
What is on the heart may be impure, but it must be prayed till it breaks and gives way to a deeper layer (peeling the onion).
Notice, again, Jesus ended His Gethsemane prayer at the opposite from what He originally asked for.
May need to stop in mid-sentence and change the subject to something you care about more, because the thing you care about is noise, obscuring the heart, and so must be prayed.
Pre-school children
Two elements of adult piety: Bible reading (we hear God), and prayer (we talk with God). The seeds of these are the two elements of childhood piety: charmed by personality of Jesus, and: a clear heart.
THis is all before any conscious “getting saved”.
Charmed: stories of Jesus from the gospels (later becomes B/S)
Clear heart: end of day, coming to rest with mom or dad (aside from issues of sin and obedience) (later becomes prayer)
Bedtime conversation
At a certain stage, a child will naturally and spontaneously talk about WHATEVER IS ON HIS HEART (he won’t later).
Parents must first teach children what a clear heart is, during the “innocent” years. (What we call innocence is not actual moral innocence, since all children are — excuse me — guilty as hell — but the innocence of childhood is actually a propensity to have a clear heart. It has nothing to do with morality at first. These are separate things.)
Children must be taught to end the day with a clear heart, or they won’t.
“There, that is called a clear heart.”
Window of opportunity before the heart is clouded. The heart is clouded (unclear) before school age.
Basis for a prayer life later on as we transfer our relationship to Jesus