Psalm 139 God is Great! God is Good!

Image via WikipediaWhen we sit back and truly contemplate all that we are, we cannot help but be mesmerized. Each beat of our heart takes so many interrelated processes working in exact harmony, we know that it is impossible that human being could create something so perfect. If we sit and observe the precision of nature, we are filled with a profound reverence for life and for God. We can take comfort in the immanence and steadfast love of God. We should take time to contemplate our lives and marvel at the wonder that is our existence.

Psalm 23 Green Pastures

Image via Wikipedia Green is term we use to describe those who are inexperienced and childlike in understanding. But “green-ness” is critical to a fresh perspective and new understanding. Although many of us desperately cling to the “same-ness” and stability in our lives, living is about change and transformation.

Psalm 119 The Living Law

So many of us as sincere believers read the Scriptures looking for principles by which we can live our daily lives. While this is a helpful and important part of our spiritual journey, literal adherence to ancient texts can be problematic. The Word is a living Presence which cannot be limited in a word (or many words). The true power of Scripture is its ability to open our minds and hearts to the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit, so that It can guide us in God’s way.

Psalm 118 Death and Rebirth

How do you respond to the idea of death, with resistance or acceptance? The dramatic stories of this holy week in the Jewish and Christian traditions remind us that we must be willing to face death directly in order experience salvation. Are you in tune with the small deaths that you are confronted with daily? As spiritual seekers, we die to our attachments to the world.

Psalm 31 Cycles of Growth

As we walk along our spiritual path, our lives and experiences move in cycles. First, there is the time of rapid advancement in which we have a lot of activity going on and our progress feels very real and measurable. These times can be experienced as a high because we are in the flow and we can feel it with every fiber of our being. We feel the Presence and Power of God in a tangible way. These are the times in which we are acutely aware of Divine activity in our lives.

Psalm 126 Awaking from the Dream

Have you noticed that we tend to label things we do not want or do not like, evil? It is interesting how we take our own expectations and standards and make them the benchmark for “right” in the world. Much of the suffering in this world is merely a dream ( or perhaps nightmare) of our own creation. This is not to say that we should completely discount the presence of evil in the world, but it does help us take a step back and look more closely. More often than not our experience of suffering is caused by our own inability to let go of what we think should be and instead accept on what is.

Psalm 32 Acknowledging our Sins

Do your sins define who you are? Are they opportunities for you to learn and grow? Or do you hide your sins from yourself and others to maintain a facade? To sin is merely “to miss the mark” and we are all constantly doing that. How we process our missteps is just as important as the actual sin.

Psalm 63 Hunger and Thirst

Making a commitment to the spiritual journey and actively seeking God, we literally tap into the strong human craving to reconnect with Spirit (my soul clings to you). This basic need is frequently described as hunger and thirst. For all human being’s this desire is present, and it is a basic compulsion in us all. Unfortunately, most of us do not understand that this underlying discontent that we all feel is a spiritual need. So we set off to placate the urge with things physical, emotional and mental. But these cannot quench the thirst; only the spiritual journey can do that. So we see many people in orgiastic relationships with sex, falling in love, money and intellectual theories. But at their core they remain discontented because they have not reached towards the heart of the problem. In all of us there is a core yearning that can only be satiated by spiritual enlightenment and a relationship with God.

Psalm 27 Spiritual Warfare

When we are in the middle of difficult circumstances, there is nothing more powerful than knowing that God is with us and that all is well. Our needs are already known and supplied. We do not have to ask God for anything, we merely have to open our minds to the knowledge that there is only good in our life and bless our circumstances. God is the source of our wisdom (light) and our inheritance (salvation), the psalmist says. In the knowledge and understanding of our rightful place as children of God, what should we fear? All that is God’s is ours, how can there be any lack? “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom 8:31)

Psalm 138 Self Sufficiency

Self sufficiency is the greatest hindrance to our spiritual development. Many of us believe that through sheer willpower we make our lives happen. But of course that is not true. There is an underlying force that creates life that we cannot explain or control and that is the breath of God. It is that invisible vitality which inspires our being: it is our soul. When we live in harmony with that inspiration from Spirit, we feel truly alive.

Psalm 71 Spiritual Maturity

As the years pass our bodies go through changes, along with our minds and spirits. Human race consciousness teaches that as our stay on this planet is prolonged, we must experience deterioration in our bodies and minds. We have been taught that these changes that take place are negative and that we should fight them to the extent that we can with medical and scientific intervention. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, we must inevitably experience change in our bodies and minds, but none of this should be viewed as negative or as deterioration. It is just different.

Psalm 36:5-10 Unbounded Love

So often we define God’s love by our limited human ideas of what it means to be loved. But love in the divine sense is at the same time similar to and very different from human love. Sometimes I think of it this way: take the highest and healthiest aspects of human love and expand. God’s love is the impulse to oneness or unity. It is the knowledge that we are all of one Source and the feelings, thoughts and actions that come from that understanding.

Psalm 148 The Rejuvenating Action of Praise

It has been said, “prayer and praise change people, not God.” What happens to us when we offer praise to God?

To praise God essentially requires us to willingly put God at the center of our lives. We must surrender all of ourselves to the Spirit.

Psalm 96 All Things Old Are Made New

The irony of the world is that the more things change the more the stay the same. Our planet is undergoing dramatic change the likes of which has never been seen before. Technological advancements have created an environment in which many of us are suffering from information overload. There is no sign of an ebbing of the rapid pace of transformation. In the midst of all of this turmoil, there is a source of stability and permanence in our lives should we choose to embrace it. God is our refuge in a world of chaos.

Psalm 126 Awaking from the Dream

Have you noticed that we tend to label things we do not want or do not like, evil? It is interesting how we take our own expectations and standards and make them the benchmark for “right” in the world. Much of the suffering in this world is merely a dream ( or perhaps nightmare) of our own creation. This is not to say that we should completely discount the presence of evil in the world, but it does help us take a step back and look more closely. More often than not our experience of suffering is caused by our own inability to let go of what we think should be and instead accept on what is.

Psalm 25:1-10 Grace

One of the most profoundly liberating aspects of the divine/human relationship is the nature of the grace of God. We do not have to be perfect before we receive grace. It does not require us to make amends for our past mistakes (do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions). There is no scorecard. We merely have to change our minds and make God the center of our lives. Although God’s grace is constantly in our midst, our ability to experience that mercy is limited by our ability to give it expectant attention. Without our willingness to look for and anticipate God’s care, divine miracles can happen all around us without us experiencing the wonder of the direct knowledge of grace.

Psalm 16 Divine Protection

One of the most important aspects of a relationship with the Divine is that it improves the believer’s everyday life. This is commonly referred to as the protection of God. For the faithful there is a perspective on every situation that is beyond the worldly appearance. Without faith in God and the spiritual perspective, the world seems to be an evil place. This prayer of thanksgiving to God is a strong affirmation of faith that there is no good apart from the Divine. The spiritual life offers us the ability to see any circumstance from the divine point of view (holy ones in the land).

Psalm 127 God is Our Foundation

Frequently, we encounter people who believe that they are the masters of their own successes. They will not acknowledge a higher presence at work in their lives. They toil away at their lives attempting to reach greater heights. These are inevitably the same people who find themselves in a great mess in their lives at some point, because instead of identifying with their spiritual nature, they have identified themselves with some worldly thing (money, job title, familial role, etc.). Once the world as they know it has been taken away from them, they struggle to find meaning in their lives.

Psalm 24 Sincerity of Purpose

Contemplative moments (ascend the hill of the Lord ) are ones in which we are acutely aware of the Presence of God within us and in our midst and our connection to that Presence. It is interesting that while we are in the world, we are never separate from God (the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.) And yet even the most devout people proclaim the experience of separation from God. Despite the presence of God everywhere, in the world there are many distractions, internal and external, that seduce our attention and energies away from this truth. During these times it is critical that we stay connected to our deep down, burning desire to know God (clean hands, pure heart.)

Psalm 34:1-8 Lessons for Life

One of the most challenging aspects of the spiritual life is that the Spirit of the Divine requires a blank canvas (poor soul), on which to paint its perfect portrait. We must approach God with pure humility, laying aside our personal will, in the search for true spiritual understanding. Any troubles we experience are only a reflection of our erroneous beliefs of our separation from God and each other. We experience separation primarily when we become deeply self-centered. When we choose to make ourselves our center, our connection to God fades.