Well guys and gals, I’m sorry that I haven’t been blogging regularly! However, I am still here and occasionally following your posts – I have been uber swamped between a full-time job, an internship, full-time college, teaching, bible study etc… Its been hectic! So in the spirit of the Super Ultra Packet: DUN, DUN, DUN, DAH! I have written this Super Ultra Blog Post! (cue Chariots of Fire) to fill in all of the missed posts. It’s going to be big.

PRAYER

Gosh! Where to start. Prayer. Is praying difficult? I think it is… sometimes. I find that we need to be spiritually armed and physically relaxed. Its hard to pray when your balancing a life and death situation when your parachuting out of the airplane as it goes down with only a hefty trash bag you found in the back. I do think that the imagery of the lute-player and the lute from the 14^th century Byzantine monk summarizes the act of prayer nicely. “The lute has turned into music; and the man who strums upon it is TAKEN out of himself, for the music is soft and entrancing.”

In many ways we can certainly pray and commune with the Lord when we are active. I do it best when I am mentally calculating my physical movements on a rock face while climbing - actually touching God’s creation. I, like the lute-player, also use music to “take me out” of the moment and into the ethereal realm of meditation. But, I seek God the best when I am constantly praying every day with devoted times to sit and pray.

As Richard Foster said: “those who have braved the depths of the interior life, to breathe was to pray.” This speaks volumes to me! As I’ve been relying on God to show me some direction and start me along the ‘path less taken’ to find my purpose, I find it hard to imagine not waking up in the morning and not praying. That is to say, not recognizing Christ’ passion in me. It is hard not to recognized God in me and in my life when you take that first refreshing breathe of brisk mountain air, or the screaming burning in your lungs as you’re the 6^th mile up-hill or when the congregation takes a collective breathe before entering the next verse. I believe that when God calls us to “pray ceaselessly” He is affirming our actions to thank him, like the Psalmist, everyday for His presence in us.

There is a song, You are Everything, its probably my favorite worship tune (here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X43XXpItGk0). It talks about our inadequacies as humans; and that we are created by God and in His image. But the chorus says what I am trying to say best: “You are everything that I live for, everything that I can’t believe is happening, You’re standing right in front of me! With arms wide open, all I know is every day is filled with hope. You are everything that I breathe for, and I can’t help but breathe You in, feeling all this life within…” When we live daily, recognizing Christ in our lives, communing and seeking to have a relationship with Him – we will be filled! I love that God created us to be with Him and all we need to do is believe and seek a relationship back! Check out LUKE 6:45 – with the abundance of Christ in our hearts, our mouths with speak the truth.

When we are constantly in prayer with the Lord we will be overflowing:

-with God’s love; not the love you think about, but AGAPE love – love with no bounds.

-with God’s grace

-with the presence of the heavenly Spirit

Without constant vigilance in prayer, we would find that we are more empty that when we began our relationship with God.

MEDITATION

            I found this devotional to be unsettling and even a bit contradictory to itself. In the first line, it says that mediation should not be confused with yoga. True, yoga is traditionally an Eastern practice to find your ‘calm’. However, I find that I engage with the Lord best when I am physically engaged too. “Christian meditation engages every part of us...” mental focus aside, shouldn’t this be our bodies too? I find that when I calm my breathing and feel my heart beat in my chest and the oxygen sink down deep into my lungs, I can relax everything enough to focus on God. Is this inaccurate or just me?

            I believe that meditation is a state of being, a state of living. And we should meditate: reflect, ponder and muse persistently. I believe that mediation is a purposeful movement mentally and physically to connect with Christ.

            As Joyce Huggett, quoted in the devotional said: “yet another reason to meditate is so that we may become conversant with the will of God,”  I have found that God doesn’t converse with me as an omnipotent voice in my head that renders suggestions. But he encourages me and converses with me through scripture, relationship with others, self-centering (and not a vain self-centering but like collecting oneself), and through worship. Am I missing the point? I don’t think I am, God will converse with us in many forms and still meditation is just one.

            I find that removing myself from ‘large crowds’ and putting myself in ‘green pastures’ and ‘nature’ that I do not substitute the purposeful meditation but that these things serve as additives to my meditation. I challenge you with this: “How do you meditate? You know you know how you do!”

(I guess this blog and the ‘Prayer’ blog have kind of run together, sorry.)

STUDY

            With prayer and meditation we find ourselves in a state of study. When we focus and dedicate ourselves, we find a total transformation. “We have been given this means of God’s grace for the changing of our inner spirit.” Matt Redman says in his book Unquenchable Worshipper,  ‘whether we are worshipping and with an audience of 3 or and audience of 30,000 we are always worshipping before the presence of One.” 

            This will be a brief blog and maybe this is because I feel this is a chronically changing experience and that I should only speak on my acute understandings.  I enjoyed the endnote 6, John 12:27-32, which describes us as demanding rights we do not have as slaves to Jesus. I’m going to expand on our slavery to Christ and what that means.

This is an abridged message I wrote, entitled “Constant Vigilance with Christ” (I reapply themes I guess –).

           

Concerning Change of Status - 1^st Corinthians 7: 17-24

 

¹⁷ Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. ¹⁸ Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised.¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. ²⁰ Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

²¹ Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. ²² For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. ²³ You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. ²⁴ Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

Awkward at best to use this scripture with students, I think it tells a hugely important message about study. God calls ‘each person lead the life that they were meant for’. And in concerning ourselves with circumcision or not is dwelling in petty things. God means for us to be so much more and when we act like Jonah, from the Jonah and the Whale, and disobey our calling and seek more earthly things we dwell in the petty.

Instead of seeking our own purpose, God tells us to remain in the state, condition, the place that we were called to be. This means to be content in Christ. Now here’s the part that will make sense as to why I included this:

If you are a slave, do not worry about being a slave for this is God’s purpose. BUT, should the opportunity present or avail itself to be free from human bonds, then take it! We are not simply lemmings meant to be moved across and God-sized game board of Life, instead he has given us free will and when we stray off our meant-to-be-on path, God will realign us.

If you were called as a slave, called to be a slave, and decided to follow but with Jesus Christ, you had your freedom with Christ. In contrast, if we were free when called to follow, the we are now slaves to Christ. i.e. we are bound and committed to Him and find Him through scripture.

I think it is wonderful to know that we are all bound by God’s will and called to study His word, however when we wonder and veer off His chosen path for us, we will find redemption in His presence and in His word which He left for us to study. I like Steph’s prayer when she says “Place a rich desire in my heart for studying…” This makes me smile because God’s desire can be rich in our hearts and I can’t help but think of sometime thick and sticky that follows us where we go!