“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in all the earth.” (Psalms 10:10, NIV)
Bernard of Clairvaux was born in France in 1091; with every educational advantage, he showed great promise. His all-out commitment to God came as he approached his twentieth birthday, shortly after his mother’s death. He joined a religious community at Clairvaux, where his inner life of prayer was shaped and deepened. From there, he was called on by leaders to lend his insight to the profound conflicts of the day. Douglas Steere commented, “In a day when prayer is widely regarded as a subjective exercise which man initiates and where for a brief period man welcomes God as his guest, an encounter with Bernard of Clairvaux’s writings will be a bracing contrast. Instead of man being the host and God the Guest, Bernard reverses the role and shows the prevenient God as the host who in prayer initiates in His guest what He later crowns.”
For a Wesleyan Methodist, this recalls John Wesley’s description of how grace expresses itself in our lives: prevenient, justifying and sanctifying. Prevenient grace is the grace of God going before us, seeking to open our minds and hearts. It may be no surprise that the first entry in Selections from the Writings of Bernard of Clairvaux begins with another familiar theme: piety.
“Do you ask what piety is? It is leaving time for consideration. You may tell me I differ from him who defines piety as ‘the worship of God.’ What is essential to the worship of God is the practice to which He exhorts in the Psalm, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Consideration purifies the very fountain, the mind from which it springs. Then it governs affections, directs our action, corrects excesses, softens the manner, adorns and regulates the life, and bestows the knowledge of things divine and human alike.”
As consideration becomes a spiritual discipline, we begin to live deliberately, first in attention. Jesus described people seeing but not really seeing. We’re like the American tourist in Paris who rushed into the Louvre and shouted, “Quick, where’s the Mona Lisa? I’m double-parked outside!” We flip through the Bible, drop in on church, offer a quick prayer, and feel we have performed our duty.
In contrast to this attitude, we find a person giving due attention in Moses and his response to the burning bush. The bush wasn’t the message, it was God’s way of getting Moses’ attention. We then engage in reflection. It wasn’t enough for Moses to see, he had to attend to what he saw. It was the decision to look closer that made the difference. Reflection is more than seeing clearly and deeply; it is also readiness to respond to where God may lead. If we live with attention and reflection, then comes involvement. Jesus had the power to take up his life and to lay it down. We do not keep ourselves for ourselves; we give ourselves away for our brothers and sisters.
Moment of Reflection: Do you have a “burning bush” experience? How did you respond?
Prayer: Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine. Amen.
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