The Game with Minutes

Dear Friend,
How are you?  I’m well. 

Earlier this year, my pastor in Singapore endorsed a Richard Foster’s book, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ.  It introduces many traditions or streams such as the contemplative tradition, the holiness tradition, the charismatic tradition and so on.  I enjoyed reading the chapter on the contemplative tradition, as I really wanted to practice the presence of the Lord like Brother Lawrence.  In that chapter, the author introduced Frank C. Laubach.  The name seemed to be familiar to me and I was able to recall that a sister in my Singapore church gave me one of his books, Letters by a Modern Mystic.  Richard Foster wrote about Frank C. Laubach: 

This led Laubach into many experiments in prayer. His “Game with Minutes” is the delightful spiritual exercise of forming a habit of having God in mind each minute we are awake. “Impossible,” you may say. Laubach himself wondered about its feasibility: “Can I bring God back in my mind-flow every few seconds so that God shall always be in my mind as an after image, shall always be one of the elements in every concept and percept? I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this question.” While going through busy days filled with literacy development, he was constantly “learning the vocabulary of God” (a phrase that he later used as a book title). On 1 January 1937, from Nagpur, India, he wrote, “God, I want to give You every minute of this year. … I shall try to learn Your language as it was taught by Jesus and all others through whom You speak — in beauty and singing birds and cool breezes, in radiant Christlike faces, in sacrifices and in tears.”

After I read through the chapter on the contemplative tradition, I really wanted to read the books of Frank C. Laubach and I read his booklet, The Game with Minutes.  Today, I would like to share some from the book:
How can a man or a woman take the course of being with Christ today?  The answer is so simple a child can understand it.  Indeed unless we “turn and become like children” we shall not succeed.  

What is meant by winning?
You win your minute if, during that minute you either:

1. Pray
2. Recall God
3. Sing or hum a devotional hymn
4. Talk or write about God
5. Seek to relieve suffering of any kind in a prayerful spirit
6. Work with the consciousness of God’s presence
7. Whisper to God
8. Feel yourself encompassed by God
9. Look at a picture or a symbol of Christ
10. Read a scripture verse or poem about God
11. Give somebody a helping hand for the Lord’s sake
12. Breathe a prayer for the people you meet
13. Follow the leading of the Inner Voice
14. Plan or work for the Kingdom of God
15. Testify to others about God, the church, or this game
16. Share suffering or sorrow with another
17. Hear God and see Him in flowers, trees, water, hills, sky.

We never attempt to keep a minute-by-minute record (excepting perhaps occasionally for an hour), since such a record would interfere with normal life.  We are practicing a new freedom, not a new bondage.  We must not get so tied down to score keeping that we lose the glory of it, and its spontaneity.  We fix our eyes upon Jesus, not upon a clock.

Friend, I don’t agree with some of the methods he suggested in the book such as looking at a picture or a symbol of Christ, as I’m afraid it can be an idol.  Yet I’m sharing the methods he wrote, as I don’t want us to throw the baby out with the bath water.  And I don’t always win in this game of minutes, but I will continue to play this game and would like to encourage you to join the club.  And I like Frank Laubach’s encouragement: “This game is not a grim duty.  Nobody need play it unless he seeks richer life.  It is a delightful privilege.  If you forget to play it for minutes or hours of days, do not groan or repent, but begin anew with a smile.”  He shared many examples as to how we can play this game, while we are at work, in meetings with someone, at home and so on.  And one thing he shared in the book was what I already started to do, practicing the Presence of God: If you lean back and think about some problem deeply, how can you remember God?  You can do it by forming a new habit.  All thought employs silent words and is really conversation with your inner self.  Instead of talking to yourself, you will now form the habit of talking to Christ.

Friend, I’m not always successful in this, but I’ve been trying to talk to the Lord instead of talking to myself.  And I would like to share some of my talks to Him.

“Father, she (my mom) is so sweet, Isn’t she?  Thank You, Father.”
“……”

“Father, I don’t like that man (a politician).  But I know You want him to be saved?  I will pray for him.”
“……”

“Father, I think I will clean the toilet tomorrow.  Sorry…”
“……”

Friend,
Do you like to play the game with minutes, too?  I hope you and I would enjoy it like a child and enjoy talking to our Father and thinking of Him.  For now, I don’t recall who wrote that, but it was like “We don’t seek His answers, but we seek Him.”  I have freedom so that I don’t get discouraged by having no answer from Him in my conversation with Him.  I simply want to seek Him, not the answer.  Hope this encourages and blesses you.

Have a bliss!
​Yunee

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Psalms 42:1~2a)