Madame Guyon spent much of her life imprisoned under royal order in a convent and then in the Bastille because of her devotional beliefs.
This is a summary of some of her thoughts (the complete booklet is about $10 at Amazon).
She says there are two ways for us to come to the Lord in prayer: (1) Praying the Scripture and (2)Waiting in His presence.
Her simple, gentle style is easy and comfortable, yet she pierces my soul.
Praying the Scripture
This is what she says to do: Turn to the Scripture and choose some passage that is easy to understand. "Then come quietly and humbly to the Lord. There, before Him, read a small portion of the passage you have opened to.
"Be careful as you read. Take in fully, gently, and carefully what you are reading. Taste it and digest it as you read...you do not read quickly. Do not move from one passage to another, not until you have sensed the very heart of what you have read. You may then want to take that portion of Scripture that has touched you and turn it into prayer.
"You will be surprised to find that when your time with the Lord has ended, you will have read very little, probably no more than half a page.
"Praying the Scripture is not judged by how much you read, but the way you read.
"If you read quickly it will benefit you little. You will be like a bee that merely skims the surface of a flower. Instead, in this new way of reading with prayer, you become like the bee who penetrates into the depths of the flower. You plunge deeply within to remove its deepest nectar.
"Of course, there is a kind of reading the Scripture for scholarship and for study--but not here...To receive any deep, inward profit from the Scripture you must read as I have described. Plunge into the very depths of the words you read until revelation, like a sweet aroma, breaks upon you.
"I am quite sure that if you will follow this course, little by little you will come to experience a very rich prayer that flows from your inward being."
Following this advice has helped me. Actually I am more eager to begin my prayer time with this system -- I am excited to see what God is going to reveal to me in those few words. And I have had some wonderful surprises!
And prayer seems to flow outward in a natural way, streaming forth to search out the things I already wanted to pray for. It's almost like the water cascading down as a waterfall, and then spreading out to cover the landscape. Also, it seems to reduce the problem of distractions, which is a major problem for me.
And it reminds me of Philip Yancey's book on prayer. He talked about a mountain summit, with the melting of the snow pack, how the streams flowing down into the valley below became rivers and then lakes. I need to go back and read that again because I am not getting it correctly some of the time.
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