pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: meditate


by Leave a comment

Lead

Reading: Exodus 17: 1-4

Verse Two: Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you put the Lord to the test?

At times it can be difficult to lead.  But we are all called to lead our lives as a witness to Jesus Christ and His love.  In this case we are following one leader as we seek to lead others to a relationship with Jesus or deeper in their present relationship with Him.  To lead as Christ led can require us to make difficult decisions and, at times, to take stands that may be unpopular.

God chose Moses to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land.  This has been and will be a difficult task, but Moses remains steadfast to his call.  The people have grumbled and even fallen into sin.  God has used Moses over and over to lead the people to freedom and to provide for them.  They grumbled about food and God brought quail and manna, validating Moses’ leadership along the way.  Today, once again, the people grumble.  Instead of praying and seeking God, they complain.  There is also an element of testing God.  Moses says to the people, “Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you put the Lord to the test”?  True, the people are thirsty and they do need water.  But they are certainly testing both God and Moses’ patience.

At times we will be called upon to lead and the Word of God will give us clear and direct guidance on how to proceed.  It is easier to lead when there is an obvious path.  But occasionally we must turn to the Holy Spirit and we must listen very closely to discern the will of God that gives us direction.  In both cases, there may still be grumbling and complaining.  Sometimes this is easy to dismiss and sometimes it is hard to do so.  To be sure in our decisions and leadership, we must spend much time with God.  The larger the decision, the more time we should spend.  Our time spent with God in prayer, reading and meditating on scripture, and discerning His will brings us increased assurances that we are leading in a Godly direction.  Then if grumbling comes, we know that God had left our decision and that God will continue to guide us through.  In this way, we can trust into God.

Moses was a great leader because of his solid connection to God.  May we lead in the same way, deeply rooted in God, leading in a way that brings God all the glory and honor.


by Leave a comment

Be in the Word.

Reading: Luke 24: 22-27

Verse 27: … He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Jesus has just been present to these two followers as they expressed their emotions concerning what has taken place over the last few days.  In today’s section, a still ‘hidden’ Jesus gives these two a great study that arches through and over the scriptures that make up our Old Testament and brings them right to the current moment.  Jesus begins this great teaching with what is almost an admonishing: “How foolish you are and how slow of heart”.  Just as He was often with the disciples, so too is He with these two: saddened with their lack of understanding and insight.  Jesus spent three years teaching and being with the disciples and His followers and…

Jesus does not linger long here though.  He jumps right into the Scriptures and “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself”.  As they walked along the remainder of the seven mile journey to Emmaus, Jesus unpacks the Scriptures for them and connects all the Law and prophets to the Messiah, to himself.  It had to be amazing to experience how the whole Bible connects both to the Messiah and to itself.  It must have been wonderful to see how all of those individual books were part of one large story.  These two must have been astounded at this stranger’s teaching ability and knowledge.

And just think – all of this is available to you and I as well.  We have the Scriptures available to us – probably several copies.  It sits on the table or on our desk or on the nightstand.  We carry it with us and have instant access to it via our cell phones.  There are a ba-zillion reading plans, commentaries, studies, … out there to help us navigate through and to understand the Word of God.  When we regularly make the time to spend with the Word and when we invest in meditating on the Word, then we will be like these two walking along the road: we will encounter the risen Christ.  He is alive.  When we spend time with the Word of God, we encounter the risen Jesus there.  Be in the Word.  Encounter Jesus.


by Leave a comment

This Day and Forevermore

Reading: Psalm 121

Today’s Psalm is one of my favorites.  To me it speaks of the encompassing nature of God.  In the opening lines we are reminded that God is the creator of all.  When I look up to or venture out into the Black Hills, I can see God’s fingerprints all over the place.  One does not have to live near the hills, however, to ‘see’ God’s hand.  One can look up to the stars, one can gaze out across the ocean, or one can even look at the beauty and intricacy of a flower or spider’s web.  And one can even ‘see’ God’s hand in the voice of the songbird or in the giggle of a small child.

The balance of the Psalm speaks to the ways in which the God who created all we know and see also pays attention to you and I.  God watches over where we tread and where we sleep.  God protects us from the harmful rays of the sun and moon.  God watches over us and keeps us from all harm – both now and forevermore.  His love and care for all of us is all-encompassing .

While God loves each and every one of us equally, we do not all know God’s love in the same way.  There are many who struggle through life trying to “do” life on their own.  There are even some regular church attenders who do not know how much God loves and cares for them.  To truly know just how all-encompassing God’s love and care is, one must know God in deep and meaningful ways.  To know God in this way requires a disciplined and obedient practice of the daily habits and exercises of the faith.  One cannot run to God only in the crisis.

To truly walk daily under the watch of the Lord, the Word had to be at our center.  Each day we must read and meditate on the Scriptures.  Each day we must spend time talking with God, both thanking God for our blessings and bringing Him our petitions as well.  In these ways we connect our heart to God.  And each day we must practice what God reveals to us in our time with the Bible and in our time talking with God.  We must love our neighbors, turn the other cheek, care for those in need, and lift one another in prayer.  The closer our daily walk is to God, the closer He walks with us.  May it be so this day and forevermore!


by Leave a comment

God’s Ways

Reading: Psalm 119: 1-8

When we were little we learned our ABCs.  It was the first step in learning how to read.  Without knowing our letters, we could not decode words that were new to us as we learned to read.  Throughout life, much of what we learn, we read.  The ability to read and understand and learn is essential to doing well in life.  This skill is also important in our faith.  In our journey of faith, much of our growth comes in quiet moments reading and meditating on the Bible or a devotional or some other book relating to our faith.

Psalm 119 is written using the ABCs.  It is an acrostic.  Each line of the first stanza begins with aleph,the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Each line of the second stanza begins with beth, the second letter.  This pattern continues throughout the longest chapter in the Bible.  Unfortunately, we lose this unique feature in the translation.  Yet the idea and thought behind it remain a great tool to learn God’s Word.  The author was writing in an acrostic format to help the original readers remember better.  In this Psalm, the focus was on God’s ways or on the Law.  The pattern employed would help the readers to recall the Law, a very important part of life for all Jews.

At youth events where we have groups together for the first time, we often play the name game.  It is played in a circle and we go around and around saying “John jackalope” and “Lisa lizard” and so on until we all know each other’s names.  This is the concept in the Psalm.  Learning is so often a pattern or something that captures your attention so you can retain it better.

Verse two reads, “Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their hearts”.  I fully believe this is true.  But to keep God’s statutes and to seek Him fully, we must first know God.  To know God, we turn to the words we find in the Bible.  We begin by knowing the words of scripture.  There are many ways to come to know the words.  For some, it is writing out a verse to come back to over and over; for others it is reading the same few verses for a few days in a row, taking time to really consider their meaning.  One way does not fit everyone.  We each need to find our ‘best’ way to learn God’s ways and then use that ‘tool’ daily to grow in our understanding of God and to deepen our faith.  May we each take time daily to be in the Word and to learn His ways, so that we may be blessed as we follow God’s ways.


by Leave a comment

Praise

Reading: Psalm 145

“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom”.  God is indeed worthy of our praises.  All the blessings in our life come from God alone.  For this simple fact we should offer our praise to God all the time.  From the larger view, we sense God’s greatness, but we cannot see the bounds of it.  It is like looking out upon the ocean or up into the night sky – we can sense the immensity of it but we cannot really fathom or understand just how big or great it is.  Such is the case with God.

“I will meditate on your wonderful works”.  Even though we cannot fully understand, we can meditate on and wrestle with the things of God.  God’s hand and Spirit are at work in so many ways all the time.  It is good for our soul and good for our faith to take time often, to slow down, and to see God in our world and in our lives.  When we meditate on this, we gain a better sense of what we cannot fully understand.

“The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made”.  God desires to bless you and me.  God desires to bless all of creation.  This has been God’s intent since the beginning of the world.  But we are fallen and broken.  We sin.  This does not diminish God’s love for us.  Seeing our human state, God sent his only Son to die for us.  God is compassionate.  His love for us is so passionate that God gave his only Son for our sins.  This is an essential truth if our faith.  Consider this well today.  Meditate on God’s love and compassion for us all.  God is worthy of our praise.


by Leave a comment

Mary Time

Reading: Luke 10: 38-42

“Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her”.  What is better is to sit at Jesus’ feet, to listen to His words, to meditate on their meaning, and to apply them to our lives.  Just as Mary did this, we too are called to daily do the same.  We are called to what is better, to spend time with Jesus.

Life is busy and there is always much to do.  We can easily fill our days up with a long to-do list.  There are so many people and things we are committed to.  We can all relate to Martha in this story.  She is feeling the pressure to always be on the move so that all gets done.  She is a doer and a worrier.  One cannot read this story without feeling at least a little like Martha and without feeling at least a little conviction.

I think a little conviction is good now and then.  It allows us to examine our lives, our practices, our priorities.  There is no need for guilt.  The story simply allows us to evaluate if we are spending enough ‘Mary time’s or not.  Deep inside we all feel the pull to spend time daily with God and we all know that life is better when we do so.  Once the habit is established, our daily personal time with God is closely guarded and kept sacred.

It does not matter if our Mary time is early in the morning, during our noonday break, or in the evening sometime before bed.  It does not matter if our time with God is relatively short or if it is really long.  Each of us are unique and need to find our own best way to come and sit at Jesus’ feet, to connect our heart and soul to His.  If you do not have Mary time each day, try it for a few weeks.  Pick a spot in the New Testament and read and reflect and pray for a little while each day.  If you do have some Mary time each day, blessings on your time each day in His presence!


by Leave a comment

Our Call

Today is Ash Wednesday.  Today Lent begins.  Lent is a time designated as a time of preparation.  Spiritual disciplines such as self-examination and repentance, self-denial, and fasting couple with practices such as prayer and reading and meditating on God’s Word to help us prepare ourselves for Easter.

Lent is often a time we choose to give something up.  This is a form of self-denial.  When we crave or notice what we chose to give up, we should draw close to God in prayer.  We are reminded that we are dependant on Him.  Fasting is another way we can deny self and draw closer to God.  In the same way, when we feel the hunger we draw close to God in prayer and seek His strength.  In one of the devotionals I read, the author wrote, “Fasting is an offering to God to overcome being and doing what we want so that we may be and do what God wants.”  We become less so that He can become more.

Lent should also be about other things we choose to do for God.  In today’s reading from Isaiah God calls us to feed the hungry, to care for the poor, to loosen the bonds of injustice, to free the oppressed.  God is seeking a just and fair world, a world where all are loved equally and where all have enough to meet their needs.

You and I have a role to play in this world that God wants to see.  Both personally and corporately we must be involved in healing our world.  Us as individuals and our churches as a whole can do much to restore this world.  Whether one person at a time or one issue at a time, God’s people must make a difference in this world.  It is our call.

Scripture reference: Isaiah 58: 1-12