The Thin Place

Gethsemane

Is place important to you when you enter into a time of prayer?  I reflected on this again recently after listening to a teaching on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane from Pete Greig in the Prayer Course II https://unanswered.prayercourse.org/sessions/.  I was fascinated thinking about Jesus, at the moment He is about to enter into the greatest suffering of his life, makes a conscious choice to go to a place to pray. But He doesn’t just choose any place. Gethsemane was a familiar place to Jesus. Jesus and His disciples had been there frequently prior to this moment which explains how Judas knew where to find Jesus on the night He was arrested.  I imagine Jesus starting to feel the pressure of the suffering and pain that awaits Him and seeking a place of comfort. Or maybe He is seeking a place where He would be able to enter into prayer with the Father with vulnerability. 

I picture Jesus amidst the olive trees, looking at the olives on the branches and considering what would happen to those olives when they are ripe and ready.  They would be picked from the trees and then pushed through an olive press to produce oil. As Jesus’ himself is pressed in this moment, is He able to imagine the beauty of the oil of His own life poured out on the cross? Under that pressure, does He believe this suffering will serve an eternal purpose?  He falls, heavy with grief and the weight of what must be done, to the ground and prays that if it’s possible, this moment would pass by him.

Practice of prayer

Jesus knew the significance of withdrawing to a place to pray. What Jesus experienced in the garden is what I’ve come to know as a “thin place.”  If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a thin place is where the line between heaven and earth feels thin.  The barrier that can happen when desiring to experience the presence of God seems to be lifted and it’s somehow easier to enter into being with Him.  While we know that God in His omnipresence is always with us, that doesn’t always seem tangible. Our mind knows this truth but our heart feels the angst of the distance.  We can pray anytime and anywhere but we don’t always have the sense that God is near to us when we pray.  In the thin place, the barrier is lifted and we experience God as the one who sees us and knows us. He reassures our hearts are that we are not alone. Peace that is beyond our understanding washes over us. The weight we carry is transferred from our shoulders to His.  A moment in the thin place becomes like a stone that we hold tightly in our fist and mark an encounter with the Holy One.

My thin place.

Have you discovered a place that feels like the line between heaven and earth is blurred? For me, the majority of my thin places are outside, where the ceiling has literally been removed and the heavens open up so Jesus can enter in. 

Sitting still by a lake or with sand in my toes at the ocean.

Walking through a forest of trees.

Resting on a swing in someone’s backyard.

Lying on a blanket at a park surrounded by green grass and spring flowers.

One of my favorite and easily accessible thin places is my own backyard. I’ve experienced it so often that I now anticipate Jesus meeting me on our back patio. The patio holds a dark-stained wood table with a bench seat on one side. It stands under the shade of an oversized, black umbrella.  Bright turquoise seat cushions rest against the dark wood. Two black and white pillows are propped up on the armrests of the bench.

With my warm cup of coffee, journal and bible, I settle into that cozy spot for a time of quiet reading and prayer.  My imagination leads me to picture Jesus sliding up next to me to share that bench.  I can sense His nearness. I feel the comfort of His arm around my shoulders or His hand on my knee, as a Father would sit with His daughter.  I unpack the worries that flood my mind. I write about the disappointments that I’m experiencing. I cry over the hurt of a broken relationship in need of repair.  Then, as I journal, I hear the quiet of His voice.  He reassures me with the truth of His word. He whispers abundant love that I didn’t need to work or perform for. He tends to my broken heart with healing that could only come from encountering Him.  That’s the beauty of the thin place for me.

Receiving His love again.

Believing what He says is true even when I can’t see it.

Shifting my perspective to hope.

Experiencing healing in my broken places.

The road ahead.

What about you?  Where is the thin place for you? The place where it seems easier to enter into a conversation with Him and hear His response. Have you been there recently? Do you need to set aside time in your calendar and pick a place to enter into the garden and bear the depths of your pain in the presence of the Father?  When Jesus prays in the garden, we don’t hear the Father’s response. What we do see is Jesus’ response to that encounter. Jesus rises with strength to face His accusers and the difficult journey to the cross. His perspective shifts from “let this moment pass” to “the JOY set before Him.” We need that kind of encounter with God today. Then, we’ll be able to rise with strength and hope to walk our own difficult road.