Christian Meditation: Links

https://www.allaboutgod.com/christian-meditation.htm


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhGUWbhK_zU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmv2kyIUF6g


Find many more in Google-land


Blessings in your stillness.

Prayer For Earth

Please Lord help us to be good stewards of this beautiful paradise that is our temporary home. Help us to preserve it for our grandchildren. Deliver us from the cancer of greed that drives us to destroy the very lungs of our planet. Deliver us from the pursuit and inappropriate use of power, especially now that we have accumulated so much of it. Awaken us to the magnificent beauty and sustaining gifts of nature. Help us to not get lost in what we have created. Help us to remember that everything we create comes from that which we did not create--that which has been gifted to us, even as life itself, along with our creative powers, has been gifted to us. Help us to not be wasteful, to be generous with our excess, and content with less. Thank You for this beautiful earth!
 "The heavens declare Your glory and the earth shows forth Your handiwork." Ps 19:1

Be Still

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. Ps 46:10

The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still." Ex 14:14

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress;
he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. 
Ps 107:28-39

And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Mk 4:39

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. Ps 131:2

Most of the Christians that I know, including myself, have not availed themselves of God's wonderful invitation, extended to all His children: "Be still and know that I am God". Only in the latter years of my walk in Christ have I begun to practice being still and knowing that He is God. And it has opened a whole new, infinite world of peace, strength and inspiration. It takes time to be still. And patience. And sometimes courage--because of what we face in ourselves when we be still. It's not all good. Some of it hurts us, scares us, or makes us ashamed. That's where many people start turning back into the material world. They don't get to the "calm," "quiet" "desired haven" spoken about in the above verses. Being still means facing a world of distractions, most of them in our minds. We discipline ourselves to sit until all the distracting smoke clears. We keep coming back to "knowing that He is God". There is an infinite depth in this "knowing". As we begin to experience it, we also begin realizing that there is nothing in the universe of serving, working and loving our people that is more important than this being still. It is by drinking from this deep, pure well of living water that we are nourished to do all the work of the Kingdom. It is from this Source that all ministry comes; and when it issues from this Wellspring, we are continually replenished, renewed and restored as we work and serve. We realize that we can never go very long without returning to this infinite beauty, grace and love. Our soul hungers for nothing else than to sit, like Mary at Jesus' feet and float in the ocean of His love-filled universe. The noise of the world--all its "worries and cares"--fade farther and farther away, like a ship leaving the clamorous city of port and sailing out into the quiet, star-canopied ocean. Our soul resonates with the Truth of the universe; the living, eternal Word, the Source of all that is. Everything that is oppressive-- all worry, fear, guilt, shame, feelings of inadequacy, condemnation, including that unnamed tense knot of foreboding--is all burned away in the consuming Fire. All that's left is a profound, liberating knowing that He is God. We experience the "rest" that Jesus promises His followers--rest for your soul. [Mt. 11:29] We are able to touch, or rather, our souls are touched by the Reality of Christ in us; Christ Who has overcome the world and sits at the right hand of God. We experience inwardly, in an ever-growing way, the Reality of being at one with God through Christ Who is in us and in the Creator/Father.

Rebellion and Wrath

God's Love has the face of wrath against rebellion. Rebellion is a type of lostness/blindness that wants to be a god unto itself, ignoring the obvious Reality: we did not create ourselves nor the principles by which life and the universe operate. Rebellion comprises an angry demand for its own way. It frequently sees itself as a victim. It ignores kind persuasion, which it frequently misperceives as weakness. God's is patient in His wrath against rebellion. He sends the prophets; He waits; He measures out the consequences; He issues warnings. He continues to allow us freedom [the only freedom that we humans have has been given to us by our Creator].  The consequences of rebellion accumulate and increase over time and in proportion to the level of rebellion. At some point, God's wrath manifests as detachment. He leaves us to our own dark devices. Jesus described this as a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Those who are awakening see this Reality. And pray for more awakened souls. They work peacefully to evoke the Kingdom of God.

Freedom From Religion

Those who want to divest themselves of the constraints of religion are like adolescents who want to divest themselves from the constraints of the authority of loving parents. If they succeed, they find drug dealers, sex traffickers and gangs who will gladly give them sanctuary from that authority. The constraints of true religion [Christianity] make freedom possible.

Socialism employs power to enforce equality. Democracy confers freedom and relies on morality, sustained by Christianity, to supply equality. As religion declines, morality declines. And as morality declines, power ascends. It can not be otherwise.

Link to important research re. childhood adversity

Adverse Childhood Experiences TED Talk Nadine Burke Harris

Sex Talk

On a PBR broadcast I heard an interview with a woman who had become extremely popular posting YouTube talks about sex. Her talks were frank and "cutsie" so to speak. She became so popular that she visited college campuses as a guest speaker. She brought forth a deluge of hateful responses however when she reluctantly labeled herself a "feminist." And she ran into more problems when she used the words "dyke" and "tranny" [for transgender] in what she believed an appropriate, that is, non-derogatory, manner. She was even derided for using the terms "male" and "female"! [It seems that some folks feel these terms imply that one is either one or the other, versus consisting along a spectrum of sexual orientations that have nothing to do with genitalia.] She found it impossible to talk about sexuality without inflaming some group; and they were responding with overwhelming vitriol, to the point of her receiving death threats! This is one of many examples of the ways that diversity in America has become an arena of growing hatred and fear: between political parties, sexual orientations, races and ethnicities, even men and women. Jesus said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and He prayed for unity among His followers [Matthew 12:25, John 14]. He commanded His followers to love and pray for their enemies [Matthew 5:44]. We are indebted to Him and the leaven of His teachings for the level of civility and harmony that we have experienced in our nation, and for whatever of it that remains today. In the past we have relied upon His teachings to guide us in life's affairs, including the handling of our differences. As Christian influence wanes, or to whatever degree it does, we might ask ourselves: What is going to restrain our passions in the pursuit of what we believe to be the best?  What influences will move in to take over the ideological space evacuated by faith in the One Who commands us to love each other and Whose Spirit unifies while preserving diversity? Will Islam provide that level of love and tolerance? Will atheistic communism or socialism? We have witnessed historically the devastation of mass murder and genocide enacted under those political ideologies. The human problem is a problem of the heart--motivations, desires and passions. This is the arena that Christ transforms. All else is palliative at best.

Living Under A Curse

You can spend a long time unconsciously living under a curse that someone put on you without even knowing that they were doing it. You can find out if you're living under a curse by paying attention to what is in your mind. If you are arguing with someone in your mind, or criticizing them; if your heart is hardened against them, you are living under a curse that you have allowed Satan to put on you through that person.  You are creating unnecessary suffering for yourself and probably others also. If you are living fretfully in fear of what another person may do or fail to do, you are living under a curse. The sinful nature/darkness/unconsciousness in others tends to connect with or evoke our own sinful nature-- and empower it. Our sanctification process in Christ is to allow His Light in us to drive out all the various darknesses of those curses--to deliver us from vulnerability to others' sinful nature processes. As we sing in one of our Christmas hymns, Joy To The World, "He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found." The curse, however, is widespread and deeply rooted in the human psyche. We are acclimated to it. Christ's command that we love each other and His promises of peace, abundant life and joy press against and expose it in the deeper regions of our unconscious. When we sincerely try to love and to receive the gift of these promises, we find resistance within ourselves. We find that we cannot love adequately, and we do not experience the peace, joy and life that Christ promises. This is a great discovery! Now we have the opportunity to discover some of the darkness of the Curse that is lurking within us; and to bring the Light of Christ in to destroy or overcome it in the power of His Grace. We see the patterns that were established in us growing up in this fallen world--patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that we were not aware of until we sincerely tried to love with Jesus' love and abide in His peace and joy. We discover subtle layers of guilt, anger or fear. Maybe we were holding a grudge. Maybe we were making ourselves miserable trying to get someone to love us because we grew up feeling unloved; or maybe we had given up, in despair. Jesus awakens us from all this and transforms us by the renewing of our minds. His Spirit in us [by our invitation only] begins a process like metamorphosis, transforming us from the caterpillar of the curse into the butterfly of salvation and redemption. He releases our souls from the captivity of the darkness of the Prince of this World, even in the depths where we did not realize we were enslaved.  Just like He said [Luke 4:18].

This verse speaks for itself.

Daniel 9:13  As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth.

Perhaps today we can entreat the favor of our Lord, turn from our iniquities and gain insight from His Truth, which is the Truth by which the cosmos operates--the Truth that sets us free.