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Always be mindful [Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006, 4:16 pm]
I dream too much. If dreams were truly pathways that led to real life events, then perhaps that would be a good thing. But that isn't generally the case, at least not in my world. I know people who have a hard time keeping their physical actions under control, and I wonder how it could be that hard. But then, we all have our areas of struggle. Keeping one's thoughts under control is hard too. No one sees you thinking, and no one can correct you. Just as with actions, it takes willpower to control thoughts. Take each one captive - that's what we're supposed to do. Mine are sometimes more like hyperactive jumping beans than shackled captives. That made little sense, but the point is, every now and then, cleaning is in order. Personal thought control is much more, well, personal than many other areas of cleaning, because it can't be done with pure physical strength or monotonous ritual. But God loves me - and. . .it doesn't matter if I'm not the same as everyone else. If I was supposed to be - I would have been. The key is to always be mindful of HIM. Things that don't need to be there have a much harder time staying when thoughts always return back to the giver of life. I know the word "mindful" is used in the Bible several times, and I just love what it means when you really think about it. It doesn't mean what happens at church once a week, or during a prayer before a meal, or only during nightly Bible reading. If you are always mindful of God's presence, then everything you see/do/experience relates back to him - not to yourself. Sometimes I like to consider prayer to be more like dsl than dial-up. We can make it so ritualistic if done the wrong way. For example: first you have to say a proper opening phrase, like "dear God" - as if you were addressing an envelope. And at the end, you always have to say the proper words, like putting a stamp on a letter, or hitting "send" on an e-mail. Will the prayer still get there if you don't say, "In Jesus name, Amen"? It's not like typing in a password and waiting for a connection. The connection is there, and always has been. If we don't see it, perhaps we aren't hooked up to the right computer. I, for one, let my thoughts and emotions get in the way far too many times. I don't need to be always mindful of my emotions. That would be a big mess. I want to develop the mindfulness that I see in other, mature Christians, who can look at things from a different angle than I generally do. I don't want to be a dial-up Christian. The gap has been bridged, and I can't keep hiding behind my mind. *Laura* Miss anything?
Vitality - Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009 |