Sunday Inspiration: The 60-60 Experiment

16 Oct

The 60-60 Experiment by Dr. Joseph Peck

The 60-60 Experiment is a 60-day journey in faith to develop a radically-responsive relationship with God. As you experience a moment-by-moment connection to God with wide-open willingness, He will fulfill your deepest longings and transform you into a life-giving person.

On October 9, 2011, I began The 60-60 Experiment recommended by John Burke in his book Soul Revolution. Within a few days I began experiencing several profound breakthroughs.

For example, …

I completely cleared my Inbox for Gmail, something I had wanted to do for several years, but never could before no matter how hard I tried.
I resumed my weekly email with prayer requests to 40+ intercessors. This was something I had done for 6-12 months before letting this good habit slip away. I’ve wanted to resume this for more than a year, but for some reason I couldn’t until this past week.
I asked for recommendations for LinkedIn and received 8 encouraging ones within 24 hours. In the prior 3 years, I only had one recommendation because I never made this a priority.
I began video messaging, something I’ve wanted to do and known how to do for 1-2 years, but somehow just couldn’t get started.

How does The 60-60 Experiment work?

For 60 days you intentionally connect with God every 60 minutes. You can remind yourself every hour in a variety of ways. For example, you might set your watch to beep every hour, have your mobile phone vibrate every hour, put sticky note reminders in several places (e.g. on your computer, bathroom mirror, car dashboard, etc.), or put a little string on your finger. Whatever works best for you is fine.

Years ago, it used to be that a plane was flown by both a pilot and a navigator. The pilot flew the plane while the navigator gave directions because he knew precisely where the plane was and where it was going. The 60-60 Experiment is about letting the Holy Spirit be the navigator for your life, while you serve as the pilot.

How might the The 60-60 Experiment revolutionize your life?

In 1930, Frank Laubach began something similar to this at the age of 46 after becoming severely disappointed with the lack of fruit in the first part of his life. During the next 40 years of his life, Frank wrote more than 50 books, developed the Each One Teach One literacy campaign responsible for teaching more than 60 million people how to read in their own languages around the world, was proclaimed by Encyclopedia Britannica as perhaps the best educator of modern times, and was named “Man of the Year” in America.

Reorient – Doing Life With God 60-60
[Source: pp 49-51 of Soul Revolution by John Burke]

For the first forty-five years of his life, Frank Laubach lived a pretty average life. He was an American-born Christian living in a remote part of the Philippines, yet on his forty-sixth birthday he wrote in his journal,

I no longer sense that life is all before me, as I had a few years ago. Some of it is behind — and a miserable poor part it is, so far below what I had dreamed that I dare not even think of it. Nor dare I think much of the future. This present [moment], if it is full of God, is the only refuge I have from poisonous disappointment and even almost rebellion against God.

Yet that year, 1930, despite the disappointment of life so far, something changed. By 1970, when Laubach passed away, his influence had spread worldwide. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes he was perhaps the single greatest educator of modern times, voted “Man of the Year” in America.

In the last forty years of his life, Laubach developed the Each One Teach One literacy campaign, used to teach sixty million people to read in their own language, all across the globe. He wrote over fifty books and became an international presence in literacy, religious, and governmental circles – having an influence on poverty, injustice, and illiteracy worldwide. His influence spread to presidents as well as across the underdeveloped areas of the world.

What changed in that year of 1930 for Frank Laubach? Many who have written about him say little about his spiritual life because they don’t understand it, but in his own words, 1930 was the year he began to Experiment with a reorienting, revolutionary kind of prayer that changed everything.

In Laubach’s journal, published under the title Practicing His Presence, in January 1930 he wrote,

Two years ago, a profound dissatisfaction led me to begin trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour … [People] said it was impossible, I judge from what I heard that few people are really trying even that. But this year I have started to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, “What, Father, do You desire this minute?” It is clear that this is exactly what Jesus was doing all day every day.

Laubach began an experiment – much like the 60-60 Experiment – in moment-by-moment continuous conversation with God. Laubach said, “It is exactly that ‘moment by moment’ surrender, responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, ‘lost in His love,’ that I [desire] to explore with all my might.” After thirty days, Laubach already felt a joy he had never experienced in sixteen years as a Christian.

This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me… I need something, and turn around to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me. God takes care of all the rest. My part is to live this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect responsiveness to his will, to make this hour gloriously rich. This seems to be all I need think about.

After sixty days, Laubach wrote,

The experiment is interesting, although I’m not very successful thus far. The thought of God slips out of my sight for I suppose two-thirds of every day,… [yet] this thing of keeping in constant touch with God … is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working…. As I analyze myself I find several things happening to me as a result of these two months… this concentration upon God is strenuous, but everything else has ceased to be so. I think more clearly, I forget less frequently. Things which I did with a strain before, I now do easily and with no effort whatever. I worry about nothing, and lose no sleep…. If He is there, the universe is with me. My task is simple and clear.

Nearly a year later, Laubach wrote,

It is difficult to convey to another the joy of having broken into the new sea of realizing God’s “hereness,” … How I wish, wish, wish that a dozen or more persons [would try this] … and write their experiences so that each would know what the other was finding as a result! The results, I think, would astound the world. At least the results of my own efforts are astounding to me.

Can you hear it in Frank Laubach’s journals – this eternal quality of living that comes flowing up from within as we do life in relationship with God?