Centering on Agape

Every morning I’ve been doing a practice near the beginning of my morning prayers when I pray to become ‘centered’ on agape. This practice began as I used Romans 5:5 to start. I pray: May “God’s agape pour into the center of my being thru the Holy Spirit.” That prayer helps me let God’s agape open me to access God’s Presence.

What such a prayer practice means to me is
[1st] accepting agape-flow into 'the center of my being' (in ancient Greek, ‘the heart’);
[2nd] meditating on the way agape opens me to the Presence of the Holy Spirit over me, under me, around me, and thru me -- as I open to both the intimacy and the vastness of Presence.

I’ve found this to be very helpful for my spiritual development. Thru that practice I’ve slowly been able to ‘sense’ Presence permeating my being and in the next moment I ‘sense’ a deep, vast silence. As I wait upon that ‘deep, vast silence’ I gain a sense of divine Presence throughout that ‘silence’ -- in that way it’s not silence in the normal meaning of that word -- in the same way this practice has led me to realize that agape is not love in the normal meaning of that word. Then as God's agape opens me to the vastness of silent Presence, I 'sense' the spiritual connection that agape gives me with God.

Now, of course that is just the beginning of the wonder that agape brings to me. Thru that practice I have found deeper insight into Paul's conclusion that agape brings patience and kindness [1 Cor. 13: 4]. Of course, I call it “just the beginning” because I have become more sensitive to how very far I am from fully accepting agape’s patience and kindness into the everyday actions of my daily life.

I guess the most common example of my lack of progress is the way I lose patience with my grandson when he gets on my nerves and frustrates me. The need to keep working on gaining patience to handle such frustrations is one of the reasons why I talk about centering my life on agape.

It is not enough to center on agape in the moment of deep prayer, accepting God’s agape pouring into the center of one’s being; but also it’s necessary to center one’s life in God’s agape. That's needed in order for agape to work in the daily relationships and the daily times of need and struggle. That’s how we find the strength, patience, kindness, and joy of God’s agape flowing into action in our living.

But it is exactly in finding such effectiveness of agape’s help that we find our closeness to God’s Presence.