Getting "Radical"

I've shared some about a book we are doing in bible study called, "Satisfy My Thirsty Soul" by Linda Dillow. Well, the same girl that put me on to that book has another one she is reading called "Radical". I've heard others mention it and it sounds great. I'm reading something else right now so it will be a while before I get to it but it is definitely next on the list. Read the post below from her blog and I hope you feel the same passion and encouragement I did when I read it. This mother has a child with a rare skin disorder that is horrible. She has been a blessing to me. http://patriceandmattwilliams.blogspot.com/2011/04/here-we-go-again.html

Centering Prayer

We were very fortunate last week at our worship team retreat to have a workshop on prayer. The ladies that delivered the workshop gave information and showed us how to practice different forms of prayer. One of the types of prayer demonstrated was called Centering Prayer. I guess I should have known about this before but I'd never really heard or seen it demonstrated. Or at least I'd never seen it tagged with this name.

In the Satisfy My Thirsty Soul book I've shared about, the author challenges readers to try something very similar. She doesn't call it centering but calls for us to learn how to "quiet our inner chatter" so we might hear from God. It is very interesting.

So what is centering prayer, you ask? Well, the author of the book suggests that we set aside 20 minutes to focus on God and quietly listen for His response and feel His presence. Have you ever tried to sit quietly and focus on only one thing for 20 minutes before? How about five minutes? This is hard stuff.

The first time I tried this my thoughts went something like this. "God you are so wonderful and good to me. I don't deserver Your...was that the dryer buzzer? What was in there? Oh towels. They can wait. And God I just want to be in your presence and feel your touch...did I remember to put mouth wash on the grocery list? I know I'll forget. Must remember mouth wash. Ok, and God I just want to sit in Your stillness and hear your voice. [5 seconds pass] Is that the refrigerator door? Riley get out of the refrigerator! Grrr." So needless to say in about 60 seconds I really was off to a poor start.

One of the ladies at the retreat offered a nice addition to this practice. She suggested deciding on a word or image that you would come back to when you begin to feel your internal chatter taking over. It might be the visual of you sitting at the feet of Jesus or a word that brings God into focus for you. For me it might be the word "constant". Knowning not only that God is constantly with me but that I want my focus on him to be constant.

I'm not going to say that I have this one down yet by any means, but I will say it is very rewarding and a great blessing. To sit uninterupted in God's presence is a beautiful thing. It brings strength. And I will also say the more I do it, the better I get at turning down the internal chatter. It is like exercising or anything else. Start small. Maybe in your lifestyle a five minute centering prayer would be a miracle. So start there. As you get better at it, you 'll be surprised how fast the time flies.

Beating the Holiday Stress (or ANY stress for that matter)

Proverbs 3:5&6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

I'm continuing to read Linda Dillow's book as I've referenced before, here and here and here. The current chapter I'm reading, "Bowing My Life," contains some comments the author included from other readers about turning everything over to God. Each set of comments pointed to partial submission, maybe 98%, but still mentioned that bit of control held in reserve should they need to "take care of things themselves".

I tried to examine my life. I'd like to think God has FULL control. I pray about decisions, even minor ones. I look for God's leading and the Holy Spirit to be evident in situations. So do I still hold a reserve of control? Are there still some keys to this life that I haven't turned over?

God is beginning to show me that there are. It isn't really my finances. They belong to Him. It isn't my job or decisions to be made in our home. They belong to Him. So what is it?

It isn't really as much a what, but a feeling. A situation will come along that affects me. Maybe I didn't see it coming and I really didn't cause it but it is there. And when I think about it, my neck gets tense. My mind whirrs (or as Thomas the Train would say, a thought flies into my funnel). I begin to stew, think, problem solve. (This is really hard to explain.) Sometimes I'm even determining how I will make this right, or in certain situations, how will I make the other person realize they are wrong. Yes, I do that sometimes.

But as the mind turns I feel it in my body. I'm taking over. I'm deciding the fate. I'm making the judgements and I'm deciding the outcome. I feel tense. I'm holding some of the keys that belong to God. Left unchecked or unrecognized, this feeling grows into actions - sins. I treat someone badly. I say hurtful things. I let an attitude steal my joy. I let my desires stear the will of God into the wrong direction. I'm beginning to see this.

So how can I fix it? Well, so far I haven't, but I am learning to recognize it. Feel it. And when I feel that tense feeling start in my neck, I stop. Stop thinking. Stop talking. Stop worrying. And I say three little words. ALL THE KEYS.

This is my declaration. This is my prayer to God. This is my stress relief. ALL THE KEYS. As in, all the keys are Yours. I give this situation to You. I release it to You. I will no longer try to weigh it myself. Immediately the tension is released. The mind is calmed just like the waves must have been when Jesus told them to be still. A peace is found.

Do I do it perfectly all the time? No. I let it go too far sometimes and I mourn for the joy I've lost. But I'm getting better at it. And I'm so enjoying the joy that comes from giving God all the keys to my life. Have a blessed Monday.

God's Glory

To pretend I understand God's glory would be a lie. I read a lot about God's glory...that the heaven's declare it, it can so fill a room that people can't even see, it can leave a group of people, people can worship in it...it has many dimensions. I think in my existence I have probably never experienced God's full glory. Maybe no human can. I'd like to think I've seen or felt glimpses of it. I know that I want to feel, see, experience God's glory but that it requires that so much flesh dies that I fear I may never be able to get to that point.

I was listening this week to a song on the radio. It is a song I've heard a lot of times by a band I'm not really that fond of so I've never really thought a lot about the song. But this week a phrase in the lyric really grabbed my attention and I think it holds real meaning for me at least. The lyric goes, "When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory." Pretty simple line, but these words have become powerful for me.

First, can you imagine that being in God's glory, even a little bit of it, can totally eclipse (blot out, make you forget) all your afflictions? That is huge. Why? Because that is what holds most of us back. We spend so much time worrying, pondering, sulking, wallowing and otherwise focusing all our thoughts and efforts on fixing/dealing with our afflictions.

Then, what if everyday we entered into a moment of worship that brought us so close to God's glory that we could walk out into the day totally focused on God and not our afflictions. What a different group of Christians we could be. Maybe that is how the disciples were able to walk away from their businesses and families and follow Jesus. Most of us would have worried sick about everything going on at home, but I think they were so close to God's glory when they walked with Jesus, that their afflictions were totally eclipsed.

So how do we use this in our lives? Well for me, I've been trying to keep this lyric in my mind. When a situation (or a person as it often seems to happen) begins to put my mind in a place where I feel oppressed, stressed, afflicted or irritated I just remind myself that I would much rather have God's glory than feel this affliction. I remember how much greater it is to be in His presence than to be stressed out by this trivial thing. So far, that has given me much more grace in dealing with tough situations. I'm not saying I don't feel the weight of afflictions, but God's glory is beginning to make that weight feel much lighter. Give it a try.

*Disclaimer - I'm on the road and ran out of time to proofread. I hope there aren't too many typos!

A New Book

I've started reading a new book. It is called "Satisfy My Thirsty Soul for I Am Desperate for Your Presence" by Linda Dillow. So far it is very good and I'm excited to continue with it. It has a bible study guide in the back of the book too.

This book is teaching me how to look deeper into the way I worship to not only glorify God but to enter into a face-to-face intimacy with Him. Well, at least as face-to-face as you can get with the presence of God - we know that no one can look upon the face of God but we can still have those moments where we are so deep in His presence that we feel it is just the two of us and we are CLOSE.

The first chapter of the book talks about the author's quest to find what "intimacy" with God really looks like in the scriptures. She mentions Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus when He was in their home and how she was focused on Him and not all the other things that go on when the Saviour of the World stops by for dinner. She says Mary was focused on the "one thing". She also looks at Psalm 27:4 where David declares the "one thing" that he is searching for.

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

Probably the most profound statement the author has made so far comes from her realization that she had it backwards. She had spent her life as a worker for God like many of us have. Thinking that if we just give more time, more effort, more money then eventually that will lead us to a deeper relationship with Jesus. I have done this. I'm probably doing it now. I spend way more time being a worker in the kingdom than a lover of God. So how should it go?

The scriptures say the greatest commandment we have is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. This is first. Not love him with our efforts, or our possessions but with our very hearts, minds, being. Are you in love with God? Does just working on your intimate relationship with Him occupy the most of your time and efforts? I can't say yes to this. I spend much more time trying to do things and fix things for the kingdom than I do getting to know the Father.

So how do we begin to find this intimacy? The author says that worship brings us to that place of communion with the Father. David probably shows this better than anyone through his many Psalms of worship. One technique revealed in the book so far is the ABC's of worship.

Begin with the letter A and worship with words in your quiet time that glorify God - "You are Almighty, Amazing and Always there for me" then to B, "You are Blessed and Beautiful to me. Better is one day in your presence than any others", then to C - You get the picture. It is actually a very interesting, and challenging way to worship. If is forcing me to think of the ways I describe God and the wonderful things He does for me. More to come from this book I think, but in the meantime, you might give the ABC's of Worship a try.