I am going to share with you one of my biggest fears when it comes to writing on prayer and meditation. Every now and then, I get the concern that the things I write may not help others to actually spend unscripted time with the Lord. When all is said and done, I want my writing to lead others to dedicate significant time to listening and responding to the Holy Spirit.

Let me explain my concern with a little analogy. Let’s compare teaching others about prayer to teaching a kid how to throw a curve ball. While information about the rotation of the ball and the different components of the ball might be interesting, ultimately they do not actually help a kid learn how to throw the ball. You can imagine that someone might have a PhD in physics and be able to explain the smallest detail of a ball’s trajectory, and when all is said and done, they can’t throw a curve ball.

I want to teach others how to throw curve balls.

With that in mind, my writing is only meant to be suggestions and guides that inspire you and help you to commit yourself to spending daily unscripted time before the Lord. The reason I say unscripted time is because I am convinced that when we let go of the desire to do something productive in prayer, and when we let go of the idea of good vs. bad prayer, something transformative begins to happen.

Instead of all those pieces of wisdom being abstract ideas we once read in a book, soon the Holy Spirit begins to stir incredible inspirations within our heart. Unscripted time does not add novel ideas to our lives nor does it go beyond the bounds of Divine Revelation and the wisdom of the saints, but rather it gives space for those inspirations to move and awaken deep desires within us. When we give time to explore our interior life, we allow ourselves to brainstorm the possibilities of grace.

Often, making progress in the spiritual life is about listening to the right idea at the right moment. We make this discovery through learning to be receptive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. While I try to fill my website with the right ideas, only through actually sitting down to unscripted meditation do we discover which idea is relevant to what is happening in our life. That is why above all else, I want to promote the idea of giving time daily to this endeavor.

Today, let us commit ourselves to daily unscripted time with the Lord. Let us give a space for the exploration of our lives and the many movements of the heart which populate our interior life. Let us seek to explore our life, all under the guidance of Holy Spirit.