THE CROSS LENS

The primary objective of reading and meditating on the bible is for transformation rather than for information. Unfortunately there is much teaching on bible study but not on bible meditation to help us transform our lives and to gain a heart of wisdom. We are encouraged to read and memorise biblical verses but not how to think about the verses we have read and to apply them in our lives. Edward De Bono has described 6 thinking hats to put our thinking into action. He created a useful framework of To/LoPoSo/Go as a thinking skill. Christians need to learn thinking skills and it is important to recognise the very important difference between “Christian thinking” and “non-Christian” thinking.

The difference lies in what we are thinking about and why we are thinking about them. As Christians, we are called to have the mind of Christ and to be dependent on God and not on our own wisdom or the wisdom of the world. The values and beliefs of the world are rooted in materialistic and selfish desires rather than the will of God. Worldy thinking is focussed on how we can be successful in this world and how to win friends and be happy.

The apostle James has warned us that faith without action is dead. To have a living faith, we need to apply scriptural truths in our lives. Towards this end Edward De Bono’s To/LoPoSo/Go, a 5 stage thinking structure, and the 6 thinking hats can be used to provide a framework for meditation on the bible. I have called this the “CROSS” lens.

The “CROSS” lens is an acronym for 5 stages in biblical meditation. The first stage, “C”, is to be connected with the Holy Spirit through a time of silent prayer or to use the breath prayer (see reflection on Spiritual Ventilation on 13th July 2013). This is wearing the “blue” hat to draw out attention to the sky and our need to come before the throne of God’s grace. It is the “To Where…are you going” stage in Edward De Bono To/LoPoSo/Go 5 stage thinking structure. It is important to spend time to wait on the Lord and seek His aims, goals and objectives for our lives.

The second stage, “R”, is the reading of the biblical text. We take note of what the text is saying to us and our thoughts about the biblical passage.  It is the “Lo and Behold” stage as we read God’s Word for information. We wear the “white” hat – a time of digesting the information that we have read.

The third stage, “O”, is to open our minds to the Holy Spirit to hear what God is saying to us. This is the “Po – possibilities” stage as we meditate on the thoughts arising from what we have read. To listen to God’s voice more clearly, we need to recognise the time of life we are in.

We may be in the “sunrise” of our lives when we are feeling good, doing good and everything in life is good. At such times, we need to put on the “red” hat – to submit our hearts to the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit. We need to burn away our pride, greed and lust. The lesson from King David is a warning of how pride, greed and lust can lead us to commit sins that we never imagine we will commit, in the good times of our lives. We can use the red hat to see God’s commandments and warnings to lead us out of temptation and deliver us from evil. In our good times, we can look for biblical verses to help us give thanks and to bear the fruit of love, joy and peace in our lives.

We may be in the “noonday” of our lives when we are feeling stressed by the “heat” of the pressures of life. We may be discouraged, angry, envious, jealous or bored. In such times we can put on the “yellow” hat to exchange our problems for Christ’s burden which is easy. We can take off the yoke of the world and put on the yoke of Christ which is light. With the yellow hat, we can look for any encouragement or new insights in scripture passage that we have read. It may be a time for us to bear the fruit of patience, kindness and goodness. We can look for biblical verses to remind us of God's Providence so that we can pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”

We may be in the dark nights of our souls, when we need to put on the “black” hat to draw close to the Light of Christ. God may feel far away and we may feel forsaken by our loved ones. At such times we need to pray for wisdom to see God’s promises in His Word which are beacons of light to lead us out of darkness. It is a time when we need to remember that God may be pruning us to bear the fruit of faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is a time to seek God’s word to help us experience His forgiveness and to forgive others. We can meditate on the biblical passage to find the power to pray, “Forgive us our sins so that we may forgive those who sin against us.”

The fourth stage, “S” is the surrender of our heart as we seek to obey and put into practice what God has shown us in our devotional reading. This is the “So What” stage. It is changing our red, yellow or black hats into the “green” hat as our commitment to put into practice the truths that God has shown us in our meditation on His Word.

The fifth stage, the second “S,” is seeking to walk by the Spirit. We end our reflection with a prayer that God’s Word will bear fruit in our lives. This is the “Go…….Let’s go into action” stage as we commit our plans to God and thank Him for His amazing grace to help us fulfil our heart’s desire so that we will grow in love and in the joy of living in God's Kingdom in the here and now.

A Life of Glory

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.” Psalms 50:14-15

Ireneus described the glory of God as the human being fully alive and that the life of the human consists in beholding God. Many things in the world blind us to the glory of our loving Creator God. Senseless murders, horrific rapes, disasters and epidemics, church conflicts, personal suffering of pain draws us away from the gospel that God is always good and we are always loved. A friend in the midst of his suffering lamented how he longs for Christ to come again and deliver us from suffering and pain.

But Jesus came, lived, died and rose from the dead to show us our wonderful and amazing calling to be children of God, to be the salt and light in His beautiful world that has been darkened by evil and sin. The world is waiting for us as Christians to follow the way of our Lord – to become more fully devoted to Christ, to be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all. It has been noted that “there is no limit to what God can do with a man, providing he will not touch the glory.”

Martin Luther shares the very important insight that “God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” Indeed, it has been said that there is nothing in Christ but God. George Muller testified in an address to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday that it was four years after his conversion that he fully surrendered his life. It was then that he found that “the love of money was gone, the love of place was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. “ He found happiness when God alone became his portion and he found his all in Him and wanted nothing else.

We are to live out the good news that we are the dwelling place of God and His glory. We are created for God's glory and "we are to live in and live out the splendor God has uniquely given us. We own the glory of our lives. We live out the extraordinary-ness in the ordinary things of life.” We have the choice to live out God's best for our lives or we can bankrupt our legacy of faith when we seek to live our lives on our own terms.

Gary Barkalow drew attention to the truth that we are not just the object of God's forgiveness and tolerance but that there is a brilliance, a magnificence to our lives that we are to take responsibility for - the splendor of our lives - not what has been taken away but what has been given to us. He lamented the fact that “the church culture has gone from the mysterious but true glory of a person's life to lifeless duty and function. It has gone from owning the splendor of one's life and the world's need of it to merely finding a task that needs to be done for God and making sure it is done with excellence.”

When our focus is on our tasks rather than our relationship with God, we lose sight of the glory of God. God created us to be human beings but we have turned ourselves into human doings. Let us offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for the mystery and wonder of life. Let us light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Let us encourage one another to live lives of glory so that we can shine as stars in our increasingly dark world.

Spiritual Ventilation

"So you should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus."  Romans 6:11

At a course on Community Ventilation on the use of mechanical ventilators at home for patients who are unable to breathe on their own, I was reminded of the aims of artificial ventilation:

• get oxygen in
• get carbon dioxide out
• minimise adverse effects
• maximize patient comfort. and practice.

This gave me a fresh insight about prayer as spiritual ventilation. Just as we need to breathe in oxygen, we need the prayer of thanksgiving to “breathe in” God's love. Likewise just as we need to breathe out carbon dioxide so we need the prayer of confession to “breathe out” the negative emotions of our souls.

When patients with a chronic lung disease fail to breathe out carbon dioxide adequately they will suffer from drowsiness, confusion and even coma. When we do not “breathe out” our negative attitudes and feelings, we too may also suffer from spiritual confusion and a “spiritual coma” with a sense of separation from God. This is why confession is so important for the health of our souls.

We are all spiritually half dead and in need of spiritual ventilation to revive our souls. The discipline of the breath prayer is to help us cultivate the habit of surrendering control of our lives to God and to live by the Spirit. Just as God breathed life into Adam after forming him from the dust of man, we need to breathe in the Holy Spirit so that our souls will be alive to God.

Prayer is the breath of our souls and without prayer we will be spiritually dead. We need prayer to die to sin and to be alive to God. With prayer, we can reduce the effect of sin and maximize God's peace in our lives. We need to learn to "breathe in" the love of God and to "breathe out" our cares and burdens that blind us to the love and grace of God.

Breath prayer is a contemplative practice that is based on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector where we see the tax collector praying the simple breath prayer, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 10-13). This prayer is a confession of our imperfection and an expression of our need for the grace of God to change. It is a simple and honest affirmation of God's unfailing love and our need for His amazing grace.

I have found simple phrases such as “Jesus is Lord,” “The Lord Provides,” “Peace, be still,” to be helpful at various times of my life. It is recommended that the phrase we choose be authentic to our relationship with God in that very moment that we are breathing.

Breath prayers is a form of meditative prayer that requires us to focus on our breathing. By doing we so, we elicit what has been described by Herbert Benson as the relaxation response. When we attune our breathing with a simple scriptural verse, we are in fact performing a “spiritual ventilation.” For example, as we inhale, we may pray “Jesus”, and as we exhale, we pray, “is Lord.” Or we can pray “The Lord” as we breathe in, and “provides” as we breathe out.”

Such breath prayers are especially helpful in times when we are under stress. It is an exercise by which we can focus on our Lord when we are feeling anxious or fearful. Through breath prayers, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus so that the things of this world will grow strangely dim. It is also an expression of our desire to live the perfect life in Christ:

      Breathe on me Breath of God, so shall I never die;

      But live with Thee the perfect Life of Thine eternity.