Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Praying the Scripture
To pass from reading about God to resting in God — taking one short phrase of Scripture, tasting it slowly until it draws the heart inward, then sinking into the felt Presence and surrendering there, rather than analyzing the text.
In 5 lines: Take a very short piece of Scripture — a verse or a phrase. Read it slowly, tasting it like honey, not analyzing it. The moment it draws you inward and quiets you, lay the book aside. Rest there in God’s Presence — bare, loving attention, no striving. When your mind drifts, return to the phrase; throughout, gently abandon yourself into God’s hands.
What it is
Madame Guyon’s “prayer of the heart” is a deliberately easy contemplative method, designed (she insisted) for ordinary people, not only monastics. Its first form is what she calls “praying the Scripture” — not the usual study or rapid reading, but a slow, savoring approach: you take a very short passage (a verse, even a phrase), and instead of pressing on through the text, you stay with it, taste it, and let it sink from the head into the heart. “If while reading, you feel yourself recollected” — drawn inward — “lay aside the book and remain in stillness.” Reading is only the doorway; the moment the words quiet you and turn you toward God, you stop reading and simply rest in the Presence they opened. For Guyon, prayer is finally “nothing else but the application of the heart to God, and the interior exercise of love” — and its deepest movement is self-abandonment: a gentle, continual surrender of one’s own will, effort, and grasping into God’s hands.
(The Inner Creates the Outer read inwardly: attention is gathered onto one small phrase, then released into Presence.)
The Method
From A Short and Easy Method of Prayer (faithfully described, not reproduced):
- Choose a short passage. Open Scripture to a brief, simple text — a single verse or even a phrase. Quantity is not the point; you are not trying to “get through” a chapter.
- Read slowly, to taste — not to analyze. Guyon’s image is of savoring: take in the words “as a bee gathering honey,” lingering, letting the meaning settle, not rushing to the next line or dissecting the doctrine.
- When you feel drawn inward, stop reading. The instant the passage recollects you — quiets and gathers your attention toward God — lay the book aside and remain in that stillness. Don’t force yourself onward; the reading has done its work.
- Rest in the Presence. Simply be with God in the felt sense the phrase opened — “the application of the heart to God.” This is not thinking about God but a quiet, loving attention to Him. No striving for insights or feelings.
- Return to the phrase when attention wanders. When the stillness thins and the mind drifts, gently return to the same short passage to re-gather yourself, then sink back into the Presence. Repeat as needed.
- Abandon yourself. Throughout, let go of self-will, effort, and the demand for results — hand yourself over to God moment by moment. Guyon teaches this surrender as continual, carried out of the prayer time into daily work (“pray all the time”).
Source & Lineage
Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) was a French mystic and the most famous popularizer of Quietism — the “way of pure love” emphasizing passive, heart-centered prayer and total abandonment to God.
Her Short and Easy Method of Prayer (1685) was wildly popular but became the flashpoint of a fierce ecclesiastical controversy; she was condemned and imprisoned (including in the Bastille, 1695–1703). Her work drew on the apophatic and abandonment streams of Christian mysticism and in turn influenced later Protestant pietists and devotional writers.
Common refinements
Reading too much. The method fails the moment it becomes ordinary fast reading or study; take little, and stop when recollected.
- Analyzing the text. This is tasting, not exegesis. Save commentary for another time; here you let the phrase work on the heart.
- Refusing to stop. Guyon’s distinctive instruction is to lay the book aside when drawn inward. Pushing on through the verse out of duty defeats the practice.
- Striving for feelings. Resting in the Presence is bare loving attention, not a hunt for emotional highs; dryness is fine, surrender continues.
- Confusing abandonment with passivity in life. Self-abandonment is an inner releasing of self-will, not neglect of one’s duties; Guyon expects it to be carried into daily work.