Blow the Fire Softly

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. MATTHEW 6:6

Madame Guyon called her book a method, and then, in her preface, laughed at the word. She hoped her readers would find God, she said, by following “this little unmethodical method.” She did not want to add one more system to the many that already burdened devout people. But she did want to help beginners, and for that she gave plain, practical counsel. This chapter gathers it together.

Begin with an act of faith

Everything starts, she says, with bringing ourselves into the presence of God by a definite act of faith. We do not wait to feel that God is present. We believe it, because He has said it, and we turn towards Him on that ground.

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. HEBREWS 11:6

This is more important than it looks. Many people approach prayer as though its success depended on the atmosphere they could create — the right mood, the right music, the right degree of fervour. She sets all that aside. The presence of God is a fact before it is a feeling. The beginner who kneels down cold and distracted, and says in effect, Lord, I believe You are here, has begun rightly, whatever he feels.

She adds a wise caution. We can form no image of God, she says; a lively faith in His presence is enough. We may think of Christ as He is shown in the Gospels, on the cross or in His life among men. But we are not to manufacture pictures of God and then pray to our own imaginings.

Gather the scattered senses

Next comes what she and the older writers called recollection: the gathering of the mind and heart from their scattering among outward things. Faith in God’s presence, she says, must lead us to enter within ourselves, collecting our thoughts and keeping them from wandering. She is realistic about this. It is not easily done at first, she admits, because of the habits natural to us of being taken up with the outside. But when we are a little accustomed to it, it becomes easy, both because we have formed the habit and because God sends grace to help us.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. PSALM 46:10

Practically, this means a time and a place. She insists later that outward silence is extremely necessary for inward silence. It is no use hoping to find God in the heart while the radio is on, the phone is buzzing and the list of the day’s tasks is spread out in front of us. The Lord’s instruction to enter the closet and shut the door is not a metaphor only.

Read, pause, and wait

Then she gives the pattern described in the last chapter: read a little, pause, let the heart respond, rest in what it has received, go on. She adds that the beginner should not run from one truth to another, but keep to one as long as there is savour in it. And she makes a point that every experienced pray-er will recognise. Mingle the speaking with silence, she says, gradually lengthening the silence and shortening the spoken prayer, until at length, as we yield to God’s working, He gains the upper hand.

Her image for this is homely and exact. “The fire must be blown softly, and as soon as it is lighted, cease to blow it, or you will put it out.” When some small warmth of love for God is kindled in prayer, the beginner is tempted to seize it and work at it, to stir himself up to more. She says: leave it alone. Blow gently when the fire is low. When it catches, stop blowing and let it burn.

The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. LEVITICUS 6:13

Bring everything

It would be easy to think that this kind of prayer leaves no room for asking. She does not think so. At times, she says, we come to Christ as sheep to the Shepherd, asking for our food. At times we come as to a Physician, bringing our diseases that He may heal them. We may bring our family concerns too, she adds, so long as we do so remembering the presence of God. Prayer of the heart is not a refusal to ask; it is asking from inside a relationship, rather than from outside it.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. PHILIPPIANS 4:6

Persevere

Last, she asks for perseverance. We only need, she says in her preface, a little courage and perseverance, and we have plenty of both for our worldly concerns and none for the one thing needful. The beginner who tries her counsel for three days, finds it hard and gives up has not tried it. Habits of the heart are formed as any habit is formed: by repetition, by returning, by not being discouraged at failure.

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. LUKE 18:1

Where the beginner needs care

Her counsel is good, but three cautions will keep it healthy.

First, she writes as though this method would advance a soul more in a short time than any other would in several years. That is the enthusiasm of a teacher who has found something precious. It may be true for some; it will not be true for all, and the reader who finds progress slow should not conclude that something is wrong.

Second, her counsel is for private prayer. It does not replace the gathered worship of the church, the preaching of the Word, the Lord’s Supper, or praying with others. She herself lived in a church where all of these were assumed. Some of her later readers, taking her book without its setting, made private inward prayer the whole of religion. That is not her fault, but it is a danger worth naming.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. HEBREWS 10:25

Third, method must never become a new bondage. She hated to see simple souls burdened with rules, and it would be a sad irony to turn her advice into a checklist to be anxiously kept. It is a way into the presence of God, not a test to be passed.

With those cautions, the beginner has everything needed: a quiet place, an open Bible, an act of faith, a little patience, and the promise that God is more anxious to be found than we are to find Him.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Fix a time and a place for private prayer this week, and guard it from noise and interruption.

2. Begin each time with a deliberate act of faith: tell God that you believe He is present, whatever you feel.

3. Practise blowing the fire softly: when some warmth comes, stop striving and rest in it.

4. Bring one concrete need to God as to a Physician or a Shepherd, and leave it with Him.

5. Commit to trying this for a month before judging it, and make sure it sits alongside, not instead of, worship with your church.

A PRAYER

Lord, I believe that You are here, though I do not feel it and cannot picture You.

Gather my scattered thoughts, quiet the noise within me, and turn my heart to You.

When You kindle a little love in me, keep me from smothering it with my own striving.

Give me courage and perseverance in prayer, as much as I have for lesser things, and more. Amen.