The centering prayer practice is simple to do – that’s not the challenge. It’s almost impossible to do it incorrectly. The only hard part is maintaining your belief in its effectiveness during some inevitably rough patches. In fact, the rough patches are when the practice is most effective and when God is likely working at a very deep level in your inner nature but you probably won’t realize this and your 20-30 minute sessions will simply feel difficult, distracted and frustrating.
At times the sense of God’s presence is very strong but at other times, sometimes for long seasons, there is an absence of the feeling of God’s presence. Of course, God’s presence is not absent at all but He is introducing us to deeper levels of accessing His Spirit through faith rather than feelings. At other times, you may experience emotional turmoil because the Holy Spirit is evacuating some harmful garbage from your inner being, whether suppressed trauma or other historical pain that has not been processed properly. And then of course in the early years, you may feel that you’re not doing it right, you may be frustrated with yourself because you can’t seem to stop the flow of thoughts and you may doubt that God is doing much within you.
Getting started in centering prayer is very easy, but in maintaining it you may doubt its power for the above reasons.
But the practice is powerful and the prize is great. Centering prayer will connect you to God like no other practice or experience I’ve encountered in my 43 years of seeking God. It will also transform your inner nature from your false self to your true self which results in greater freedom to really live the way you’re meant to live and to learn to love like God loves. It will develop your intuition and creativity and to unlock the many gifts that God has placed inside of you.
Rob Gerhard 