The call to contemplation is a continuous theme throughout the Christian Scriptures. Nevertheless, the idea can seem “new” or “hidden” to many, not because the theme of contemplation is not present, but because we live in an age where most people have not been conditioned to look for it. We have more often been taught to seek after elements such as morality and purity codes, liturgical rubrics, and “proof” that Jesus is God – all of which have value in spiritual formation, and the deepest meanings of which are revealed through a life of the close, intimate relationship with God fostered by contemplative practice!
If you are seeking the call to contemplation as revealed in the Bible, consider That the psalmist sings “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him” (37.7), or remember that Elijah ultimately “heard God in a still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). Jesus, among his many graces, serves as our contemplative practitioner par excellence, Luke 6:12 tells us that Jesus spent the whole night in prayer. One has to wonder how the course of Christian history might have been different if seekers would have been more often called to meditate on this verse and its meaning – What did these all-night prayer periods look like, what was Jesus’s intent in engaging them, and what about these periods was so compelling that the evangelist committed it to writing? If we’ve never considered questions like these before, perhaps we can now, and see how the light of contemplation illumines all aspects of faith.
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