Paul Bane - In the Presence of Jesus: A 40-Day Guide to the Intimacy with God Youve Always Wanted

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In the Presence of Jesus: A 40-Day Guide to the Intimacy with God Youve Always Wanted

Copyright 2021 Paul Bane and Matt Litton. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4964-5562-8

ISBN 978-1-4964-5564-2 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4964-5563-5 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4964-5565-9 (Apple)

Build: 2021-10-01 15:26:34 EPUB 3.0

To my beautiful Cathy

PAUL BANE

For LL

MATT LITTON

After thirty years of full-time ministry, I had arrived at a moment of desperation. I still recall pulling up a chair in the solitude of my study to take an honest inventory of my life as a Christian and as a pastoral leader. I had done all the right things that Id been taught to do, but still I found myself burned out, weary, and frankly, I just didnt sense the presence of Christ in my life. Yes, I had spent my days talking about God and had dedicated my life to serving Him, but I still felt like a nomad who had traveled far from home and couldnt find my way back.

That morning, God seemed farther away than ever. To be honest, my spirit was thirsty, and my faith felt shallow. I could identify with all those people who had written about their souls feeling like a barren desert. I closed and locked the door of my office, not sure if I could go on in my ministry. I was dying for a new awareness and the real touch of God in my life.

As I prayed that morning and admitted my own failures to share the truth of Gods love and possess it in my heart, I remembered a Native American saying I had once heard growing up in Oklahoma. The wisdom of the proverb was profound to me in that moment of spiritual despair: The longest journey you will make in your life is the journey from your head to your heart. The distance between my mind and my soul felt very real to me that day. I considered all the knowledge I possessed about Jesus, and yet I was not experiencing the intimate presence of my loving Savior on a heart level. That morning was a turning point in my life. There in the quiet and the stillness behind my locked office door, I invited Christ to show up... and He certainly did.

That moment began a journey where God helped me recognize that none of my theological training had prepared me to answer the spiritual dilemma I was facing. You see, all my degrees and my seminary studies attempted to resolve my spiritual struggles through biblical thinking, systematic belief structures, and rational thought. While I recognized the importance of those things, I had wrongly assumed that study, intellectual awareness, and cognitive knowledge were enough to produce a healthy and connected spiritual life.

I had been trained to think that if I simply worked at applying the Word of God to my life, I would naturally reflect the character of God in my behavior. In other words, if I knew everything I needed to know about the love of God in my head, then I would also feel and experience the presence and love of God in my heart. For years, this approach had made logical sense... until the day my heart didnt allow me to believe it anymore. Mercifully, God brought me to that very moment of desperation when I finally understood I needed to change.

My friend, it became apparent to me that I had left my heart out of the equation. l began to see that I was incapable of thinking my way into a relationship with Christ. I realized the abundant God-centered life required focusing my heart on Christ and spending time being mindful of His presence. I also realized that my dilemma and its solution werent anything new. They had been written about and practiced since the days of the early church. I simply had to go back and learn from many of the influential men and women who had shaped the Christian faith.

As I was a longtime Christian and a pastor, my intellectual faith was, of course, very genuine. But I found that I desperately needed to create intentional space to experience the love of God in my heart each day. I began to study and explore and pray about how Gods love could transcend my intellect and being. My spiritual transformation started with the same questions that maybe you are asking yourself today: Why do my thoughts and feelings constantly wander from the love of Jesus and the intimacy with Him that I so desire? How can I keep my heart open to Christ in such a fast-talking and faster-moving world? How can I nurture and maintain daily intimacy with God in the hectic pace of modern life?

For me, the journey was a matter of survival. I knew I did not need to learn or study anything more about God; what I was thirsty for was a deeper connection. I needed to know an intimate relationship with Christ in my heart. All the standard answers from my training seemed insufficient for producing that kind of spiritual life. I realized that I needed to discover how to be mindful of God in a mindless world. I wanted to learn to live in the fullness of the moment and be truly alive in Christ.

That morning, with Christ present in the quiet of my office, was the first step toward learning the discipline of simply sitting in His presence. Day by day, I learned to quiet my busy mind and release all the worldly thoughts and anxieties that kept me from communing with God. I learned how to invite His presence into the stillness of my life. I discovered how to find Him in the quiet of my soul, even with the chaos of the world swirling around me. I explored my heart and found the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God. Frankly, I had to set aside many of the theological prejudices from my evangelical life in order to discover the gift of living in harmony and unity with God.

Through Christs leading, I rediscovered the teaching and examples of the Desert Fathers and Mothers who practiced solitude and silence beginning in the third and fourth centuries. I learned through their direction how to experience inner peace and the presence of God. I learned to meditate and use the Jesus Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner based on Luke 18:13, in order to anchor my full attention upon Christ.