Writer and spiritual director Caroline Oakes perceives contemplative practice at the heart of Jesus’ rhythm of ministry. His example teaches us to detach from our judgments and expectations so that we can return to Divine presence:  

Gospel accounts show us that Jesus himself lived this contemplative, prayer-beyond-words, “inner room” practice as he often ventures out alone … sometimes being in prayer through the night…. 

The gospel writers’ first-century audience would immediately understand that Jesus was intentionally and consistently making time to be “in” the powerful and formative Divine Presence as a way to become aware of, and attune to, the movement of the Divine within and all around.… 

When we notice Jesus’ times of spiritual renewal interspersed as they are throughout the arc of his ministry—from his teaching, healing, and feeding of the four and five thousand followers, to his last words at the Last Supper, in Gethsemane, and on the cross—we begin to notice the definitive pattern in Jesus’ practice as a kind of flowing back-and-forth rhythm.  

There is a continual pausing to let go… of attachments, fear, judgment, or expectations and then a returning to the Divine Presence again and again.  

Let go.  
Return.  

Let go.  
Return.  

And the Divine is the one-pointed focus to which Jesus returns ceaselessly in this prayer rhythm of pause and release and return. This is Jesus’ formula for waking up—his formula for himself and for his followers.… It is Jesus’ practice for deepening the soul’s awareness of and attunement with our innermost essence, the Divine within.