All God's

Sometimes we act like it is all up to us. You know - we have to make things happen, make sure that people get "saved," make sure that life happens in the way that we think it should, make sure we are doing all the right things to make sure God is pleased - on and on we go thinking that we are the ones in control of our world. This is the reality:

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Ephesians 2:7-10

Everything is all God's idea. We think that we have impact on God's ideas. We do not play a major role with God and God's ideas. Life is God's gift from start to finish and God will take us to where God will. We must just "trust God enough to let him to it." This is our "job." This is our one and only job - get out of the way and trust, allow God to be God.

Our one and only job is to connect with God. To think like God thinks and to allow God to work in life as is planned. The work "we had better be doing" is allowing God to work as God wants, to believe and trust God has our best interest at hand, and connect with God through spirit each moment of our lives. We connect with God in our thoughts, our actions, our beliefs. Are we loving and kind to others? Do we believe that God needs us and we need God? Do we understand that we are divine children of God and we will have what we need and desire in the most perfect way with grace? We do not do anything, we are all being done. God is working. We need to allow.

Namaste'

Meditation

We all want a happy and fruitful life. We all want to be "happy all the time." We all want a life of calmness, peace, and inner satisfaction. However, I wonder how many of us are willing to daily the practice of having this type of life. I know that we all would like to just have this kind of life "appear" magically the moment we make a decision to follow the way of Jesus. However, even Jesus had a daily practice that few are willing to follow:

While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.

Mark 1:35

In prayer and meditation we train the mind, the brain, the spirit to understand and know the ways of God. It is in the stillness and quietness of the mind that we will find God speaking to us. It is in those times that God can use the moments of our life, the reading of scriptures, the things we feed our mind with, to bring an inner peace and calmness that "passes all understanding." We hone our peace of mind in prayer and meditaion. We are able to take the outer circumstances of life and understand what is real and what is really a delusion. We begin to understand that we do not have to have things to be happy. We do not have to have money to be happy. We do not have to make the circumstances of our life match some predetermined plan we have. No, it is within the training ground of prayer and meditation that we are transformed to arrived at a blessed state that the very luster of our inner peace protects us from any worry or concern about the circumstances around us. It is here that we actually experience:

I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4:11-13

So today think about submitting yourself to times of quiet. Think about spending some time each day in solitude, quietness of mind, prayer, paying attention to your thoughts to allow God to bring you to a place of even mindedness. Practicing this connection to God daily is the only way to think like God thinks and find that the circumstances of your life have no power over the spirit of God in you. So take time to meditate on this everyday:

Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Philippians 4:8

Train your brain. Train your spirit. Feed them both well and keep them fit for peace to have a home.

Namaste'

Yin and Yang

We have this idea that somehow we must defeat evil. We have the idea that evil is something that should never be there. We have this idea that it is good vs. evil and one of them has to win. What about the idea of strength and weakness instead of good vs. evil? Strength is good and we all have strengths. Weaknesses may be difficult at times, but we learn from them to make us stronger. We resist our weaknesses so often because we see them as evil. We see them has bad, something to be defeated and resisted. What if the weaknesses we have are there to help us strengthen ourselves and others? What if these two things actually work together and are used by God to make us whole people?

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

Romans 12:20-21

When we do not fight against evil we overcome it. One version of this passage says so not let evil overcome you, but overcome evil with good. When we get angry with someone, resist someone or some situation because we think it is evil - we are letting evil overcome us. We are not acting in love, compassion, patience, or kindness. We are reacting with anger, frustration, and resentment. Evil then wins and we learn nothing.

I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

Think about it - strength and weakness - are both great teachers. What we see as evil - bad breaks, opposition, abuse, accidents - are great teachers in our lives. They may be seen as weakness, but they are there to give us great strength. God's strength will show through in those times. It is in those times that we can allow things to happen. Being kindness, love, and compassion.

So today stop resisting everything that comes into your life as evil. Allow it to be there knowing that it is not a handicap but a gift to allow strength to be built in you. Learn from this teacher and you will find that peace will rule your heart and what we need will show up at just the right time.

Namaste'

Blessed

So when are we "blessed?" I now that most of us think of being blessed as having all that we need - plenty of money or food, a job, gas in our car, a house to live in, etc. - basically we think of having things to be blessed. What if that is not the measure of blessing at all? What if the measure of blessing is how much peace, joy, kindness, love, and compassion - the attitudes we live life with? I think we could have all the money and pleasure in the world, but never find blessing. We could have it all and live our life with an attitude of anger, resentment, dissapoinment, and hopelessness and we would not be blessed. Here is how Jesus looked at being blessed:

When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

Matthew 5:1-10

These are the beatitudes in the Message version. I challenge you to go back and read them in whatever version you want and you will find that these are arts of living, ways of living, attitudes about living life that will make you blessed. Blessed, not because of what you have on the outside, but because of how you live on the inside and what comes out of you to others. The way of Jesus.

Namaste'

Anything

Anything - what does that leave out? All things - what does that leave out? Anything means: any object, occurrence, or matter whatever, to any degree or extent; at all. All things means: Constituting, being, or representing the total extent or the whole. So what does that leave out? I mean I doubt things all the time because they do not turn out like I think they should. I worry about things because I think they should turn out differently. I forget so easily that God said that anything, all things, are possible:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!

Ephesians 3:20

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

Matthew 19:26

Does this mean that God will do exactly what I want the way I want it? That everything will work out just the way I have planned it in my head? I do not think so. Whatever I am imagining, or guessing, or thinking of - God is thinking of something better! My human thoughts and wishes are powerless. I must learn to think like God thinks. How does God think? God thinks "how can I serve" and does not worry about what is in it for self. If I can just get that, if we can just get that, I believe that we will see what God can really do.

I know that things will not work out exactly like I think they should and this really should not be my focus. Since it will not always be "my way" I need to accept that and be happy and joyful no matter the moments circumstance. I need to allow God to do as God will and just be in the moments I can thinking like God thinks always asking the question, "how can I serve?" If I do this all those other things will be taken care of by the Creator in each moment who is DOING far more than I could ever dream or think of. God does not leave anything out.

Namaste'