THE JOURNEY
For those of you who were not here in the beginning stages of this blog, you might not know that we are on a journey through three phases of life that will lead us to true, pure Spirituality in God. Those three phases, the Dark Night of the Wilderness, the Dark Night of the Soul and the coming Dark Night of the Spirit, parallel the three rooms of the Tabernacle.

In the Wilderness, God rids us of overt sinful tendencies. In the Dark Night of the Soul, God rids us of our ambition to achieve. Later, we shall see what the Dark Night of the Spirit achieves. The term “Dark Night” is descriptive of the directionless feelings we experience as we traverse from one station or piece of furniture to the next.

The Outer Court of the Tabernacle parallels the Wilderness, the Holy Place parallels the Soul, and the Holy of Holies Parallels the Spirit, the place of true, pure Spirituality – the parallel will be better seen after the initial shock of the moment dissipates . The Holy of Holies is the Secret Place of the Most High – and few experience it. Not because it is not available to them, but due to the fact they will not stay the course long enough to get there. But that is a topic yet to be covered.

THE SOUL’S LAST STAND
The Altar of Incense is the last stand of the Dark Night of the Soul. It is a place of transition. Here you will fight the last vestiges of the rule of your Soul over you, and prayer is the transition piece God uses. Just to remind you, the Soul is made of three parts – mind or intellect, will and emotion. Here, in the place of prayer, your will is trying to tell you that you have other things to do. Your intellect is telling you that prayer does not do that much good and to top it all off, your emotions are bored with it all and looking for some excitement. Yes, your Soul is fighting its end, which it senses is rapidly approaching.

THE TRANSITION OF PRAYER
It may surprise you that prayer is the transition piece for humanity to touch God, who is Spirit. You physically take your breath in and when you speak the prayer God places within you, out comes spiritual vapors that rise and winds its way into the very heart of God. This is truly an interchange of Divine proportions! This is the smoke that arises from the Golden Altar right there before you. The smoke/vapor filled prayer from this place will take you into the presence of God. He is waiting there for you – He has waited, He is waiting, He will always be waiting there for the sweet fragrance of the five types or ingredients of prayer, I will soon discuss, to touch Him – yes I did mean touch Him.

SUBMISSION OF THE SOUL
The prayer of Jesus in the Garden – “Not my will,” is all about Jesus submitting His soul to God the Father. You will have to do the same. The prayer there in the secret place of the garden and here, where you are kneeling in the hiddeness of the Holy Place, is the prayer of Jesus that qualified Him to intercede for us in Heaven. It qualifies you too.

The final subordination of the Soul is a massive undertaking and it does not submit easily. That is why it is called the Dark Night of the Soul. The struggle to complete this transition will ebb and flow. You will be successful one day and fail the next. But if you do not quit, you always win and in the process you will learn to abide under the shadow of the Almighty!

The practice of your soul submitting to your spirit is practice and preparation for your submission to the Spirit of God. Soul must not die, but it must submit to Spirit for you to live a truly spiritual life. When soul eventually submits, you will be able to love the things God loves, hate the things God hates, persevere with all diligence, have a renewed spiritual mind, and hear from God in the midst of the chaos and turmoil that assails your life.

Blessings,
John Paul

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. … do not use vain repetitions … For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” Matthew 6:6-8

The Altar of Incense, which is also the Golden Altar is all that stands between you and the Veil or the entering into the final Room f Mystery. Why prayer is so important in the grand scheme of things is deeply puzzling. It’s almost as if God knows what you need, yet He requires you to ask so He is justified in giving you what you ask. To make the matter even more complex, He places the very matter that you need to request of Him into your heart and mind so you are insured of asking Him what He longs to give you.

REWARDS AND VAIN REPETITIONS
Thus to use vain repetitions is empty prayer. The repetitive nature of this type of prayer places your thoughts or your will above His will. This type of prayer indicates that you believe God has to be coerced into responding to you. Yet, think about it. If God already knows what you need before you ask, then He must be paying attention to you. Attention is a form of love  - therefore the reasoning of God is that true prayer deserves a response. Perhaps you will receive even more than a response – yes, as Jesus said, “a reward.” To pray then, is so important to God that He promises you a reward for doing so.

That reward is more than an answer to your prayer, it is the reception of a greater measure of faith. It is amazing how much faith is generated when you see God answer your prayer. Each answered prayer then builds faith that God will answer your next prayer. Faith propels the actions of God on your behalf.

INCREASED MEASURES OF FAITH
Conversely, not to pray is a guarantee that you will experience a decreasing level of faith. To not pray will eventually play out in you becoming more critical, skeptical, and antagonistic. Additionally, you will eventually justify those feeling because you have first hand experience - God does not answer prayer. The result is that you will live a lifeless, boring, and fruitless existence; one in which you leap back and forth from one activity on to seeming endless activities looking for the thrill that only answered prayer can bring. We have a genetic and spiritual propensity to need the excitement that only comes when what we ask is answered, and in its fulfillment could only have been accomplished by a force greater than us – God.

THE SECRET PLACE OF PRAYER
Finally, the secret place we must enter into is equivalent to the very Room of Mystery, the Holy Place that you are standing in right now as you proceed forward on this journey through the Tabernacle. When Jesus said you are to enter into “your room” He was paralleling the secret place of prayer with the Holy Place in the Tabernacle. He was also paralleling the Secret Place of God from whence He will see you pray, as being the next Room of Mystery where the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat are located.

Perhaps it is becoming clear that prayer is so important to God that no one has consistent and continued access to Him without it.

Blessings,
John Paul