Common prayer is the priority around which life in the monastery revolves. Even if a monk is away from the monastery, Benedict instructs that he is to pray at the appointed hours to keep in tune with God and with his community. “Listen readily to holy reading, and devote yourself often to prayer.”

What if time with God was the priority around which our life revolved?

If you want a suntan, you need to expose your bare skin to the ultraviolet radiation from the sun’s rays. This is the only way to get a genuine suntan. There is no other source of energy you can expose yourself to or soak up in order to get a suntan. You may go to a tanning bed, but you do not come away with a suntan, you merely obtain a fluorescent lamp tan. That’s because the energy you put yourself under was fluorescent light bulbs, not the sun’s rays. You may paint yourself brown, take pills, use tanning lotion, oil, or injections, and they may give the appearance that you have a suntan; and you may even look pretty darn good, but none of these methods give you an authentic tan from the sun’s UV rays because guess what. None of those method’s sources are…the SUN.

There is but one Source that can regenerate a human heart. Only one form of energy can transform the soul into Christ and enable us to live simply. And it is only by our naked exposure to the rays of grace emanating from God Himself that we are healed of our fallen nature, conformed into the image of Christ. Let no one fool you. There is no other way to be changed at the root of who you are. To be given a new nature. Laying yourself bare before the Word of God, the voice of Jesus, and the direct touch of the Holy Spirit in total belief, surrender, and receptivity is the one dependable way to be one with God and at peace in your soul.

I have no idea as to any other way to be genuinely metamorphosed from the inside out for the purpose of becoming like Christ, and to amalgamate your desires with God’s, than by simply spending time with God, exposing your bare self to His transforming energy in focused, listening attentiveness.

Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that He is real and that He rewards those who truly want to find Him.
-Hebrews 11:6

Always only for my King