The Nearest: Devotion Not Devotions [Paperback]

`An Admission: I don't have a quiet-time'. So begins this book by Tim Ross, a Methodist minister, on prayer. I don't know about you, but I am already hooked. This has been my guilty secret too. Now I find I share this failing with at least one other Christian, and his publishers evidently think there may be enough of us in this boat to make Tim's book worth publishing. I agree with his publishers...

He is not suggesting that those who have managed to organise their lives to include a set time for daily prayer should change. Many busy people manage to fit a lot into their lives because they are as organised as the hero of Jules Verne's `Around the World in 80 Days':

[Passepartout] observed...a programme of the daily routine of the house. It comprised all that was required of the servant, from eight in the morning, exactly at which hour Phileas Fogg rose, till half-past eleven, when he left the house for the Reform Club--all the details of service, the tea and toast at twenty-three minutes past eight, the shaving-water at thirty-seven minutes past nine, and the toilet at twenty minutes before ten. Everything was regulated and foreseen that was to be done from half-past eleven a.m. till midnight.

Tim guides us through the different Christian disciplines and approaches which have historically regarded prayer as a time when we move from where we are to where God is (even if we no longer think of him as a man with a white beard on a cloud, most traditions still visualise God as physically apart from us, a very spatial way of thinking about him). Tim now suggests that we, the busy or the merely disorganised, look differently at our relationship with God:

Incarnation - that is the beginning of the Gospel. In the stories of Jesus stilling storms he does not transport the disciples to the safety of the shore; in one account he comes to them from the shore, whilst in the other he is already in the same boat with them, but in neither account does he whisk them away from the storm. He saves us not by removing us from the world, but by being with us, sharing in all that we experience, and by healing and restoring us where we are. Surely this is what we should take to form the basis for a model of Christian spirituality. God is no longer remote, up there, The Furthest, but in Jesus he is Emmanuel, God with you, The Nearest. Now he is nearer to you than the storm. He is in the same boat with you. He is infinitely nearer to you even than a quiet-time.

So now we understand the title of the book: God is as near to us as it is possible to be (`the nearest') and we are to try another way of showing our devotion. Of course, those in monastic orders who do pray at set times also aspire with Tim to hold God in their hearts - here beautifully described by Sr Ruth Starman:

As the Holy Spirit dwells in the sanctuary of our heart and is unceasingly praying in us, we ourselves carry within us a constant prayer. But most of us are unconscious of his presence and the prayer which continuously goes on in us. Our heart lies asleep and needs to be awakened to this inner reality. The Jesus Prayer is a powerful means for awakening our heart, enabling us to become aware of the secret indwelling of the Spirit in a conscious way. For too long our heart lies dormant within us like the seed lying beneath the winter snow. Finally spring comes. Snow melts away under the warmth of the sun and the little seed begins to sprout forth with its latent energy. In the same way the name of Jesus, which radiates his power and energy, warms up and awakens our heart from its winter lethargy.

This is a book that has already changed my life. Tim has this to offer the Marthas:

Brother Lawrence, a French lay brother serving in a Carmelite Monastery in the 17th century, discovered the secret of living always in the presence of God. He called it, "The Practice of the Presence." As a lay brother, he worked in the kitchens and as a cobbler, doing the kind of day-to-day tasks which may have otherwise kept the monks from their prayers and studies. Though he loved God very deeply this meant that he was not able to spend long periods in prayer, as the monks did. Instead he found that, by keeping his love for God awake in his consciousness all the time he was doing his daily duties, he was able to live continually in the presence of God.

And I leave you with his prescription for a life of nearness to God:

It is your uniqueness that God loves and values the most. Far more than any type of service or ministry you may be able to offer him. You mean more to God than the sum of all your actions, spiritual or otherwise. Find God and let yourself be found by him, and let that fulfill your desire for meaning and worth. All that your life entails, from traveling to work in the car, to going to the supermarket or just doing the washing up, is the Garden in which you walk in the presence of God.

Amen to that!

I was totally drawn to this book when I saw that it was written by a Methodist minister who starts his book with the line "I don't have a quiet time". I don't either. I have felt guilty about it at times over the years. This book has completely removed the guilt I feel about that. Tim Ross has taken truths that I did know in some distant part of my mind and brought them into the forefront of my mind. Reading this book has made these truths sink to a level of my awareness that makes them now life changing. He shows us where the idea of a set hour of prayer at the beginning of the day came from. He shows how God is The Nearest thing to me. I love the fact that there is a whole chapter of Grace. He brings the grace of God to me as the primary reason for my having a relationship with God at all. So often I forget grace and think I have to earn what I get from God.

I shall re-read this book because I know the truths will sink even deeper when I do. I recommend it.

Guilt about quiet times is a regular theme in the Christian walk. Here Tim Ross undertakes a masterful and moving journey that demythologises this sacred cow within Christian circles. Ross handles the reader with care, grace and much truth. Merit-making wouldn't be the declared currency of the believer but is often the unspoken life lived out. In Ross's own words;- "Find God and let yourself be found by him, and let that fulfill your desire for meaning and worth." This feels of the weight and wisdom of Brother Lawrence in its usefulness for our times. Beautiful, wise & unique.

Worthy of re-reading because the truths can sink even deeper. Confessional, clear and full of gracious challenge. My heart, not my habits is what Christ desires. A title that deserves the widest circulation.