Maybe it would be helpful if I made a confession – as I get older, I’m finding that I really care about fewer and fewer things. Maybe it’s the difference between thinking In & Out was the best burger while trying to convince everyone else that was the case compared with thinking it’s really good but it’s not as important as it used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I still get fired up about a few things! But the list seems to be dwindling.

A few weeks ago in his sermon, Jon Costas referred to a prayer the Puritans practiced. While it didn’t have a formal name, the spirit was to pray in “indifference.” The model was Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, “Not as I will but as you will.” Indifference was then a heart attitude that was not concerned about what one wanted but rather choosing what was central to the Father’s heart. It didn’t mean the kind of modern indifference that’s behind the word “whatever,” as in not caring or not having any preference. It meant that caring about what I want pales in comparison to caring about God and what he wants.

This form of prayer is marvelous and certainly has a longer history than just the Puritans. It usually is connected to an early Catholic figure, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). On the topic of indifference, or detachment, he wrote, “making use of those things that bring us closer to God and leaving aside those things that don’t.”[1] What he was addressing was a grace from God where we surrender the outcome, our hopes, and our fears and anxieties. We have a settled trust that no matter what happens, in Paul’s words, “grace is sufficient” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

When we were born, we entered into the world detached. Psychologists speak of attachment theory as the ways in which our inner person is seeking to “attach” by making emotional bonds to provide a sense of identity and security. Our whole life then is filled with forming attachment bonds to people and to things. This will sound strong, but this kind of attachment is what the Bible calls idolatry because, in reality, the drive to attach is really our need to re-attach to God. Only he says the significant thing about us: We are both deeply full of sin yet wholly loved and accepted. 

Ignatius then was interested in praying in a way that detached from every false god and to re-attach to the one true God. It was a time of prayer that expressed surrender, relinquishment, and trust in finding one’s true identity in the gospel. 

So, may I ask at the start of 2020, what brings you closer to God? This is your primary and life-sustaining attachment. What can and should you leave behind because those things don’t? Today commit to a practice of prayer in a very simple form which can include:[2]

• Naming and confessing attachments that take priority over God

• Letting go of image management (e.g. not buying clothes just to stay in fashion)

• Letting go of notions that your money and possession belong to you and make you who you are

• Trusting outcomes to God rather than your own capabilities

• Honoring the freedom of others; refusing to manipulate others.

[1] Ignatius, First Principles and Foundations

[2] Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, “Detachment”