Jesus the Prayerful Contemplative
Following the contemplative way of stillness at the heart of God
In a world shaped by speed, pressure, and relentless demands, we can easily lose sight of what matters most. But at the heart of the Christian narrative is a man who lived differently. Jesus the visible face and presence of the divine in human form, far from being driven by status or success, lived from a deep place of stillness. Though many today know him for his teachings or miracles, to truly follow him is to realizse that Jesus was, at his core, a contemplative. He lived from silence, acted from prayer, and saw the world through the eyes of love. If we are to be authentic followers of the spiritual path he led, then we too must become contemplatives in our own time.
That journey begins with learning from the way Jesus embraced what we might call the long silence of his hidden life. For thirty years, he remained in obscurity—no miracles, no public sermons, no movements or crowds. Apart from a glimpse at age twelve in the temple, the Gospels are largely silent about these early years. But that silence is not empty. It is formative. It tells us that Jesus was shaped in the quiet, in the domestic, in the ordinary. He learned to listen, to wait, to work with his hands. He was steeped in the rhythms of Jewish prayer, mysticism and Torah. Contemplation, then, is not a flight from the mundane—it is the very sanctifying of it.
And when Jesus does step forward into public ministry, he does not rush into action. Instead, the first move he makes is to enter the wilderness—a moment that reveals the contemplative call to let go. For forty days, he fasts and prays, stripped of distraction, stripped of approval, stripped of every comfort. In this desert place, he faces the fundamental temptations of the human soul: to define oneself by what we do, what we possess, and what others think. Yet Jesus resists each of these, rooted not in ego, but in his identity as the beloved Son. Here we see the inner clarity born from deep communion with God. And here we learn that contemplation is not easy or abstract—it is the space in which our illusions are confronted and our trust in God is formed. By going into the desert Jesus inspired the desert spiritual movement of desert mothers and fathers and the birthing of contemplative Christian monasticism and radical expressions of Christian ecclesial communities.
What is striking is that this contemplative orientation doesn’t end with the wilderness. Rather, it becomes the ongoing rhythm of Jesus’ life—a continual withdrawal and return. Again and again in the Gospels, we find him retreating: to a mountain, to a deserted place, to the quiet of the early morning. After healing crowds, he departs alone to pray. Before making major decisions, he seeks solitude. In the midst of busy ministry, he steps back—not out of avoidance, but to remain anchored. His action flows from stillness; his compassion flows from communion. This rhythm is essential for those who would follow him today. It challenges our addiction to productivity, our tendency to serve without grounding, to give without receiving, and to act without being immersed in the contemplative love of God. To imitate Christ is to learn to breathe—to exhale in the spiritual practice of prayer, community and mission and inhale in silence.
And this calls us to ask: what does contemplation really mean in the Christian tradition? It’s not navel-gazing or simply relaxing. Rather, contemplation is a way of seeing—of perceiving the world and God with the eyes of love. Thomas Merton famously described it as “a long, loving look at the real.” Julian of Norwich spoke of it as being “one’d” with God. It is the deep attentiveness that arises when we let go of distraction and live in awareness of the divine presence that holds all things. It is not about escaping reality or the pursuit of introverts rather than extroverts (who if you are like me need it just as much as introverts), but about encountering it more fully—beneath the surface, in its sacred depth. In contemplation, we consent to being seen and loved by God, and to seeing all things, even suffering, through God’s gaze.
To walk in this path is to embrace what it means to become a follower of the contemplative Christ. It means learning to root ourselves not in our achievements or busyness, or our ego, but in being. It means creating space for silence in our lives—not just to rest, but to become available to God. It means recognising that our worth is not tied to our usefulness but to our belovedness. And it means, perhaps most importantly, letting ourselves be transformed slowly. There are no shortcuts in the contemplative path. There is only a daily returning to God, a daily releasing of our ego, a daily trust that grace is doing its quiet work within us.
And yet this path is not inward-looking in the selfish sense. In fact, its fruit is precisely in how we engage the world. As contemplation deepens in us, we begin to see with what can only be called the inner and deep ability to see spiritually, through the love of God. Jesus saw people others overlooked. He noticed the woman in the crowd, the blind man by the road, the leper cast aside. He didn’t just look—he saw. And what he saw, he loved. The contemplative life cultivates this kind of vision in us: a seeing not shaped by judgment or fear, but by deep presence. It is a way of noticing beauty in the ordinary, of recognising pain behind anger, of meeting each person not as a problem to fix but as a mystery to honour. This seeing changes everything—it softens us, grounds us, and allows us to respond rather than react.
Of course, we cannot live this way without practice. And so, to begin walking the contemplative path, we might take up one of the oldest and simplest practices in the Christian tradition: breath prayer. This prayer links our breath—our very life force—with the presence of God, helping us stay grounded in both body and spirit.
Here is a gentle way to begin:
1. Find a quiet space.
Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Let your hands rest open. Begin by simply noticing your breath.
2. Let your breath settle.
Breathe in and out naturally, without trying to change it. Just observe.
3. Choose a sacred phrase.
Let it be short and rooted in Scripture or your longing. For example:
Inhale: “Jesus, my peace…”
Exhale: “…I trust in you.”Inhale: “Be still…”
Exhale: “…and know that I am God.”Inhale: “Abba…”
Exhale: “…I belong to you.”
4. Pray with the breath.
Repeat the phrase gently with each breath cycle. When thoughts distract you, simply return—gently, patiently—to the breath and the words.
5. End in silence.
After a few minutes, let the words go. Just rest in the quiet, trusting that God is present whether you feel it or not.
This small practice, done daily, begins to open up a spaciousness within. Over time, it helps us carry stillness into busy days. It roots our doing in being. And it becomes a doorway into a deeper intimacy with the contemplative Christ.
In the end, to follow Jesus the contemplative is to live not from striving but from surrender. It is to remember that we are not alone, not lost, not defined by what we accomplish. We are held. We are seen. We are loved. And from that deep centre, we are sent—into the world, into our relationships, into the pain and beauty of life—not with anxiety, but with peace.
This is the invitation. To live not at the surface, but from the depths. To speak not just from opinion, but from prayer. To act not just from urgency, but from love. Jesus shows us this way. And he walks it with us, still.
This is beautiful, Ian. A gentle and reverent reminder that Jesus wasn’t out here trying to scale his brand or optimize his funnel—he was busy being unproductive in all the right ways.
Thirty years of divine obscurity, no platform, no hashtags, just carpentry and contemplative Judaism. Today he'd be told to “build in public” and “monetize his quiet time.”
But no—he wandered into the wilderness instead of chasing followers. Faced down the ego, didn’t even vlog it.
Your reminder that contemplation is not retreat but revelation is holy fire. Stillness as resistance. Prayer as praxis.
Now excuse me while I go sit on a rock and breathe until my inner algorithm stops screaming.
🕊️📿 #StillnessIsRevolution #VirginMonkBoyApproves
Ian, this is the most succinct yet detailed explanation of the contemplative way that I have read. And I so agree that it is how Jesus illustrated human life to be, and also that it does change the way we see him. Now that I have a contemplative practice and have begun seeing this way, from the depths, I have a whole new admiration for and fascination with Jesus and with Christ. He truly was the merging of matter and spirit in a perfect way, and he is THE guru who teaches us all.