I don’t know if it’s because I am of Japanese descent or because I am a pastor—or both—but my life has been largely driven by a sense of duty. For many years, my prayer life also felt dutiful.
As I prayed through lists of people and specific requests, I would often find myself checking my watch to see if I had clocked my time. Rather than talking with God or listening for his voice, I was essentially talking at God. Those times of prayer often felt burdensome and wearying.
Over the years, my prayer habits have gradually changed. I’ve come to see prayer as a chance to enjoy God’s company. Now my time with the Lord is my favorite part of the day—a time I approach with anticipation.
During this past year of COVID-19, like many pastors, I have woken up some mornings feeling melancholy, at times with a twinge of depression. The weight of pastoral responsibility has pressed more heavily on my shoulders. I’ve worried about a young mother in our congregation who was on a ventilator, fighting for her life. I’ve worried about church members who’ve lost their jobs. I’ve worried about the financial trajectory of our church during this prolonged pandemic.
In this difficult season of isolation, discouraging news, and weighty ministry concerns, my time with the Lord feels like a lifeline. Rather than a duty or obligation, daily I’m discovering that prayer opens an ideal space to experience gratitude and joy in God’s presence.
Each morning, I roll out of bed and leash our dog, Sasha, and while it is still dark, we go for a leisurely run through our neighborhood. While running, I mentally scan the past 24 hours, looking for some of its gifts: a good night’s sleep. A delicious dinner the evening before. A swim at our local pool. A meaningful conversation. As I identify the things I am thankful for, slowly I begin to feel more grateful. I know that as I savor something good in my mind, my brain releases dopamine and serotonin, elevating my mood, but as I trace these gifts to their ultimate source, I also feel more gratitude and joy in God.
I am learning that prayer is the best context to receive and savor God’s love. A few years ago, someone encouraged me to watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a documentary about Fred Rogers. It has a scene in which Rogers, an ordained minister, delivers a university commencement address. He invites the graduating class to take one minute to imagine the face of someone who wants the best for them—someone who “loved you into loving.” (On a similar occasion, Rogers asks listeners to picture those “who have loved us into being.”) Rogers then tells his listeners, “You don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.” Inspired by those words, during my morning run, I bring to mind my wife, our son, my mom and dad (who died a few years ago), a mentor, and others who have loved me. People whose existence feels like a pure gift. People through whom I’ve experienced the love of God.
When I arrive home, I light a candle and sit in silence for a while, simply enjoying God’s presence. Thomas Keating emphasized that the goal of silent prayer is not perfect attention. If we are distracted 10,000 times, he taught, this represents 10,000 opportunities to return to the Lord. What is more important than attention is intention. With this in mind, I close my prayer with a few phrases of intention: “Help me to love you (God) well. Help me to love Sakiko (my wife) and Joey (our son) well and others I meet today.”
For pastors, this long pandemic season has brought many unique pressures and difficulties. My morning prayer rhythm doesn’t always make me feel on top of the world, but I almost always feel lighter and freer than I did before, filled with more of God’s love to offer others around me. I have more energy to make phone calls to people in our church, to see how they are faring in this crisis and to provide pastoral care. Not long ago, someone told me, “With all the responsibility you carry [as a pastor], I’m surprised you’re not more agitated. I really feel you are here in the room.” Time in prayer, focused on joy in God’s presence rather than duty, has helped me to be more present to the people in my life and ministry.
During my prayer times, I still occasionally look at my watch, but not out of a desire for time to move more quickly. Now it is with the hope that time will move more slowly as I savor the joy-evoking presence of God. In prayer, God imparts his love to me, enabling me to love and care for those I encounter throughout the day.
Ken Shigematsu is senior pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author of Survival Guide for the Soul and God in My Everything.
