The Prayer of Simplicity

One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple. PSALM 27:4

There comes a point in any friendship when words matter less. Two old friends can sit together for an hour on a bench and say very little, and it is not an awkward silence but a full one. Madame Guyon believed that prayer, rightly practised, tends in the same direction. After a time of reading, pausing and responding, the soul finds that it needs fewer words. It is content simply to be in the presence of God, to look to Him and to listen. She called this the second degree of prayer, and she chose for it a modest name: the prayer of simplicity.

Our age will find this harder than hers did. We are afraid of silence. We fill every gap with sound — music in the car, voices in our ears, a screen in every idle moment. Even our worship is often afraid of a pause. Madame Guyon lived in a quieter world, and she still thought it far too noisy. Silence, for her, was not an optional extra for contemplatives. It was the soil in which prayer grows.

What it is and is not

She notes in A Short and Easy Method of Prayer that others had called this degree contemplation, or the prayer of silence, or of rest. She preferred simplicity, because contemplation suggested something more advanced than she meant. That modesty is worth noticing. She was not describing ecstasies, visions or extraordinary states. She was describing a plain and quiet way of praying that she believed many ordinary Christians would come to, if they persevered.

Its sign, she says, is that the soul becomes aware of a certain ease in recognising the presence of God. It gathers itself more readily; prayer becomes natural and pleasant. When that happens, the soul should change its way of praying. Instead of beginning with reading and reflection, it should come into God’s presence by faith and remain for a while in respectful silence. If it is given some sense of God’s presence, it should stay there quietly, without troubling itself about any subject, for as long as that sense remains. If it fades, the soul should stir itself gently with some simple act of love, and when peace returns, rest again.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. LUKE 2:19

The older Christian writers sometimes called this the prayer of simple regard: simply looking at God with love. It is what the psalmist longed for when he asked to behold the beauty of the Lord, and what Mary of Bethany chose when she sat at the Lord’s feet and heard His word.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. LUKE 10:39

Beholding and becoming

Why should a Christian want to pray like this? Madame Guyon’s answer is that God is to be enjoyed, not only used. “The end for which we were created is to enjoy God in this life, and men do not believe it!” Most of our praying is a matter of business: telling God what we need, asking Him to act. That is right and good, and she never forbade it. But a relationship made up only of requests is a thin relationship. The prayer of simplicity is the part of prayer that wants nothing except God Himself.

And beholding changes the beholder. Paul says so directly.

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18

We become like what we look at. A Christian who spends time quietly attending to the Lord is being made like Him, often without noticing. Madame Guyon insisted that this is the surest way to real goodness: virtue that grows from within, she says, is true and lasting; virtue put on from outside is a mask that can be taken off. That is a strong claim, and it needs the ordinary disciplines of obedience beside it. But its core is sound. The disciples were changed less by rules than by being with Jesus.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. ACTS 4:13

Silent from fullness

The critics of her day said that this sort of prayer was mere idleness: the soul doing nothing, staring at a blank. She answered them in two ways.

The first was a distinction worth remembering. “Two classes of persons are silent: the one because they have nothing to say, the other because they have too much.” The silence she commends is the second kind. It is not the silence of a blank mind or a dull heart. It is the silence of a heart so full of God that words fall short. Two people may die of water, she adds: one of thirst, the other by drowning. When grace begins to flow, the soul should be still and receive it, rather than rushing about with words that interrupt the gift.

The second was an image. As the sun rises, she says, it absorbs the light of the stars, which were clearly visible before it appeared. It is not the lack of light but the excess of light that hides them. So in this prayer the soul may no longer see its own small acts distinctly, not because it is doing nothing but because God’s working has become stronger. The failure of our own activity, she concludes, springs not from scarcity but from abundance.

For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. PSALM 36:9

Whether or not one accepts every step of that argument, the pastoral point is right, and Scripture makes it too. We tend to think the value of prayer lies in what we say.

Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. ECCLESIASTES 5:2

Listening to the Word

Her deepest reason for silence is a theological one, and it is beautiful. Christ, she says, is the eternal Word. If the Word is to be received into the soul, the soul must be disposed to receive a word — and to receive a word, one must listen. Hearing, she observes, is a receiving sense rather than a giving one.

And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth. 1 SAMUEL 3:10

That is why, she says, Scripture so often calls us to hearken and give ear, and she loved the verse in Hosea in which God promises to lead His people into the wilderness and speak to their heart.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. HOSEA 2:14

Silence, then, is not the absence of communication. It is the posture of a listener. We are quiet so that Another may speak.

She is practical about how such listening is learned. Outward silence, she says, is extremely necessary for cultivating inward silence. Then comes a blunt sentence: “To be inwardly occupied with God, and outwardly occupied with countless trifles, this is impossible.” Notice the word trifles. She does not say we cannot be occupied with God while doing our duties. Her target is the clutter of things that do not matter — the idle chatter, the restless curiosity, the needless busyness that fills a life and leaves no room for God. And she warns that a half hour of prayer is a small matter if we do not keep its spirit through the rest of the day.

For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. ISAIAH 30:15

Guarding the gift

Four cautions will keep this teaching sound.

First, the prayer of simplicity has an object. It is not a technique for emptying the mind, and it has nothing in common with methods that seek a blank consciousness for its own sake. The soul looks at God as He has made Himself known in Christ and in the Scriptures. Take away that object and the silence is no longer Christian prayer at all.

Second, the Word who speaks within is the same Word who has spoken in Scripture. Many voices can be heard in a quiet heart, and not all of them are God’s. Some are our own desires, some our fears, and some worse. The inward word is to be tested by the written Word, which does not change.

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. ISAIAH 8:20

The surest way to hear Christ in silence is to fill the silence first with Scripture. Read, then be still.

Third, quiet is not a ladder to be climbed so as to leave the lower rungs behind. Madame Guyon sometimes writes as though the soul, once it has come to this degree, should cease vocal prayer and definite requests. But Scripture is full of loud prayer: cries, laments, shouts of praise, long intercessions. Hannah poured out her soul; the psalmists cried aloud; the church in Acts lifted up its voice together. Our Lord Himself prayed aloud and asked for particular things. Silence is one room in the house of prayer, not the whole house.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. JOHN 16:24

Fourth, it is not an achievement. She herself says that the soul must go to God not so much to obtain something from Him as to please Him and do His will. If we seek quiet prayer for the sweetness of it, we will be dismayed when the sweetness goes, as it will. We must seek God, not an experience of God.

For most of us the first step is not a mystical one. It is to turn things off: to leave the phone in another room, to sit for ten minutes after reading the Bible without doing anything else. The first minutes are usually uncomfortable. But, as she would say, make trial of it. The God who came to Elijah after the wind, the earthquake and the fire is waiting still.

And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 1 KINGS 19:12

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. At the end of your next time of prayer, remain for five minutes in quiet attention to the Lord, without asking anything.

2. Choose a scene from the Gospels, read it, and then simply look at Christ in it, letting your love answer His.

3. Count the sources of noise in an ordinary day of yours. Choose one to turn off for a week, and cut back one trifle that crowds God out.

4. Test anything you seem to hear in silence against Scripture before acting on it.

5. Keep asking plainly for what you need, and do not let quiet prayer crowd out intercession for others.

6. When quiet prayer is sweet, thank God; when it is dry, keep coming anyway, for His sake and not your own.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have talked to You as though You were a busy official, and filled my life with noise, and wondered why I cannot hear You.

Let me sit at Your feet as Mary did, and hear Your word, and behold Your beauty.

Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears — and let what I hear be tested and shaped by Your written Word.

Change me as I look, from glory to glory, and let me be silent not from emptiness but from fullness.

And keep me seeking You and not my own sweetness, in the dry days as in the full ones. Amen.