Copyright: This article is reprinted on the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ with the permission of Eastern Synod Lutheran (October, 1995) where it first appeared.

Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

I have chosen to find training as a "spiritual director" or prayer companion. At times I am surprised and even astonished at what has taken place. God has been most active in this process which has taken several years. For many years I used to go off by myself for three or four days, with my dog, my Bible and my prayer journal. Then I began participating in directed silent retreats at a retreat centre. I would spend eight days with many others in silence and in prayer. Each day I met with my spiritual director, recounting what has happened in prayer and thoughts over the past twenty-four hours. I began to become more attuned to God's direction for me, how God was leading me in daily life.

Eventually, I found a spiritual director with whom I would meet every six weeks or so. The hunger in me became extremely intense. Finally, I chose to become part of a nine-month training program for spiritual directors in Guelph at the Centre for Christian Spirituality.

I experienced prayer and learned how to help others to hear God's direction as they prayed. The most profound experience I have ever had was that of The Spiritual Exercises, which took place over the month of October. A silent retreat lasting thirty days, we prayed for four to five hours per day. (To some who know me it seemed an impossibility that I would keep silent for so long!) I met with my spiritual director once a day, and occasionally there would be a "day off" when twenty-four participants would talk with each other. During those days and hours of prayer God gave me many gifts, some which I am even now (two years later) discovering. This kind of experience is, perhaps to Lutheran eyes, a strange gift to ask for and to receive.

To receive spiritual direction is not the same as counselling; it is not the same as having a casual conversation "about" our faith; it is certainly not Bible study. What spiritual direction is all about is helping each other discover how God is working in our daily lives. That means letting my companion in on what is happening in my prayer, both the content and the movement. I found sharing my prayer with another very difficult at first. Aren't we told to pray in secret, so only God knows? "Go into your closet -- don't pray on the street corner" To share what happens in prayer may seem like bragging or maybe we even feel ashamed of what goes on. Yet, God has given us each other. We were created for sharing, for being in community together, to uphold each other, to challenge, to be together. What we pray about and how we pray need not be such a deep, dark secret.

Often we need each other to be able to pray. When we pray in our "closets," we ask for God's guidance. If we persevere, barriers and blocks will eventually melt away in the light of God's love. Sometimes, however, we get stuck and go round in seemingly endless circles. Sometimes that which is within is painful and convoluted. We begin to doubt both God and ourselves. We feel angry or afraid or defeated. We need a friend who will hear, whose task it is to listen to us "and" to hear how God is working in our lives. We need one to whom we can speak in confidence, one who is a praying friend through whom God is working. We want feedback so that we can hear ourselves and God more clearly. Sometimes we need someone who will teach and guide. At times we need to be able to tell another of the goodness of God, to celebrate the gifts God has given, to help us discern the ministry to which we are being called. Such is the task of spiritual direction.

As I walk with praying people, I continue to be amazed at how God works within us in our prayer. Such a holy place is prayer! We are resilient "and" fragile human beings in the hands of an intimate and loving God.