Hello Friends,
Welcome to the 13th Episode of Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias.
Let's begin to detach from the world,
To retreat into the inner sanctuary of the Self and to be alone with God.
Let's begin to breathe,
Resting in the presence of the God who gives us breath.
It is only here with God that we are completely known,
Completely understood,
Completely loved,
Where we can rest being completely ourselves.
C.
S.
Lewis describes time with God as listening to that other voice,
Taking that other point of view,
Letting that other,
Larger,
Stronger,
Quieter life come flowing in,
Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings,
Coming in out of the wind.
And that's what we do in Christian Meditation.
We come in out of the wind,
Leave the world of words and great things and just sit quietly,
Just us and the God who made us,
Who loves us.
Whatever has happened so far in your day or in your life,
Plant it into God's hands.
Lord God,
Bring good out of even the blackest seeds of our lives.
Make them flower.
We leave them in your hands.
Whatever is to come today and for the rest of your life,
Place it into God's hands.
Protect us,
Lord.
Deliver us from evil.
For now,
All we have is the present,
This moment,
You here,
Your beloved creation of God,
Resting with God.
Close your eyes,
Sit straight or cross-legged if that's comfortable for you and breathe.
A deep breath in to the count of five and out to the count of five.
Breathe in deeply,
Breathe out fully.
Stretch your arms upwards,
Maybe clasp your left wrist with your right hand and stretch towards the right.
Then reverse the movement to the left.
Cactus your arms to stretch them.
I lift them at right angles to your shoulders and stretch them slightly backwards.
Raise your shoulders to your ears.
Slowly roll them clockwise,
Anti-clockwise.
Repeat.
Ball your fists.
Tense your fingers.
Fling them out like a starburst.
Now send your breath towards any tense,
Painful places in your body.
Touch them as you breathe.
Lord Jesus,
Please heal our pain.
Exhale deeply through to your hips and down to your toes.
Clench them,
Wriggle them.
Breathe in as deeply as you can to the count of five.
Breathe out completely.
Try another couple of whole body inhales and exhales from your toes to your nose.
Breathe in,
Father God.
Breathe out,
Come.
Breathe in,
Jesus,
My Redeemer.
Breathe out,
Come.
Breathe in,
Holy Spirit.
Breathe out,
Come.
Jesus said,
Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases this.
Are you tired,
Worn out,
Burnt out on religion?
Come to me,
Get away with me and you'll recover your life.
I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
That was Eugene Peterson.
The message.
Jesus was the cleverest human who ever lived.
A master of humour and of literary devices such as paradox.
As when he offers the weary and burdened rest,
Rest by bearing his yoke.
Bearing the yoke of Jesus means developing the habit of checking in with him before we speak,
Act or commit ourselves.
For he always has a surprisingly better,
More efficient way of doing things and will show us all the things that simply do not need to be done.
Jesus promises us rest if we learn gentleness and humility from him.
As we never fully master a language or gardening or writing,
We,
The naturally fiery,
Cranky,
Worn out and hot-tempered,
Will keep learning gentleness all our lives.
Oops,
I've slipped again.
I will arise and go to Jesus.
Jesus,
Please help me for the next minute.
Desperate arrow prayers.
Jesus is too kind to demand massive behaviour modification from us to layer onto the burdens he has promised us deliverance from.
Many of them self-imposed,
Stemming from our pride and desire to impress.
He promises us the Holy Spirit,
A helper,
A seed and living water within us whose fruit is gentleness,
Love,
Joy,
Peace,
Patience,
Kindness,
Faithfulness and self-control,
As the Apostle Paul writes.
We acquire the Spirit's power to change,
Firstly,
By asking for it.
Jesus says that as a good father wouldn't deny his hungry child food,
His father will not refuse us the Spirit when we ask.
Does praying for God's Holy Spirit work?
Yes,
It does.
Will he come?
He will.
But it takes daily prayer,
For we leak.
Secondly,
We must prioritise praying for the Spirit.
The Apostles were given the greatest,
Biggest commission to preach to all nations and Jesus recommended their first move to remain exactly where they were until they were clothed with power from on high.
So perhaps we,
Under Jesus' easy yoke,
Should also remain where we are,
Not taking on any new great things for ourselves,
For God or for the world until we have been clothed with the Spirit's power,
Which makes difficult things easy and light.
As we quieten down and progressively pray to be filled with God's Spirit and God answers our prayer as he promised,
Our personality changes.
We become ever gentler.
May it be so.
Come,
Holy Spirit.
Amen.
