Hello there, and welcome back to my blog, Reforming Rob. I'm glad you're here! Thank you for spending some time with me today. In the last blog post I talked about a serious on-going challenge I have with what I termed Mind Storms. After treading through that very difficult and painful topic, I thought that having a more uplifting and positive message would be appropriate to sort of balance things out. In this post I'm going to share what I know about prayer and meditation. The how, some why, and then share a few personal and sacred examples of the power therein.
Simple Structure for Prayer
Admittedly, some of the most powerful prayers of my life have been simply looking up into the sky and expressing deep gratitude, on occassion even saying aloud the words "I hear You!" While defining a bit of structure for you in a "how to" document, I preface that with expressing my testimony that God will hear your even most simple, unstructured, immediate prayer to Him. Consider using the structure for most of your daily morning and evening prayers, as I believe it is the most respectful way we can regularly reach up to Him.
Find your place. My place is my little closet. Make yours wherever you can find the most privacy. Sometimes the only real privacy you can find will be with people in the same room, or kids jumping up and down on your legs as you kneel down. If that's all you can do, that is perfectly fine. In that case make your mind as private as possible. Whether you speak the words of the prayer out loud or in your own mind is your choice, but I would encourage you to try speaking out loud, especially if you're new to prayer.
Once you're in your place, kneel down. There is no right or wrong way to kneel down, and if your physical reality is such that you can't kneel down, then do your best version. Kneeling to say our prayers is simply our way of showing respect and gratitude to our Heavenly Father. It's a bit of a unique position to be in, one in which we normally don't use in other daily life activities, so it connects us physically to the act of prayer, and that will help our minds and attitude connect more deeply and reverently to Him.
Of all the names the Creator of our universe, world, spirits and bodies could call Himself, He chose Father as His preferred name. Most of us have fathers here on Earth too, so to help differentiate to whom we're speaking, we'll call Him "Heavenly Father". That will be your connecting words in your prayer, kind of like dialing a phone number. My prayers usually begin "My dear Heavenly Father", or something simple and similar. Think of Him as you call to Him.
So, what's next? That's really up to you and your own personal situation. I believe in trying to express gratitude first, and then ask for the things I need. That's a good structure around most "normal" prayers. For me, when I begin my prayer with things from the day that I'm grateful for, I tend to see Him more clearly, where He's blessed me that day, and it makes the connection stronger. In that attitude of thanking Him, then I'm more likely to ask for the things I need help with, or that I know someone else needs. Sometimes I vent to Him, and other times I just praise His works I've seen and felt that day. Either way, I know He hears every word.
When you're ready to close your prayer, the way we've been shown by Jesus Christ is to close in His name. "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen" is the typical closure in my prayers. For Christians like me, Jesus Christ serves as our Advocate with the Father. He is our go-between, so to speak, our connection to our Heavenly Father while we're in this life. We need Jesus as a Mediator because our Heavenly Father demands us to be clean and pure to be with Him, and while we're in this life we will not be clean and pure. So Jesus steps in, pays the price of that difference, essentially making us clean through Him, so that we can reach our Heavenly Father. That's a larger topic than I can cover in just a few lines in a blog, but even if you don't understand exactly, for now close your prayers "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." The amen part is simply a way of saying "that's all, I'm hanging up now God".
Where Does Mediation Come In?
This post has two topics, prayer and meditation, along with their connection to health and wellness. So where does meditation come in?
In answer, I'm going to share my definition of meditation first. That word conjurs up a lot of various images in people, especially in the minds of some who have never practiced it. A meditation practice for me has one of three purposes dependent on a given situational need. I use meditation to calm and quiet my mind, to think deeply or reflect on a specific topic or question, or to listen for God's answers. For any of these purposes, there is no right or wrong pose. I have a meditation stool that I made, which is a little bench that sits under my butt while I'm kneeling, and I find it very comfortable. I use that pose more than others. I do, however, sometimes meditate in my recliner or even in my bed. I have found a simple guided meditation to help sleep is effective at times. In my mind and experience you can take the topic of meditation up and pursue it down countless roads. Various techniques require certain poses, tones, candles, incense smoke, rocks or crystals, and anything you can imagine. My definition for you today is "being still and calming your mind, thinking deeply on a specific subject, or listening to God". It sounds simple, and I think it's best to keep it simple.
My meditations usually come either before or after prayer. If I meditate on a specific topic, it will generally be before prayer. If I want to still my mind, that usually is done after prayer. Meditation based on finding anwers to difficult questions done before prayer allows you to then talk to God about your findings during your prayer. Ask Him about what you learned or thought about in your mediation. His answers come most usually as a "still small voice". A still small voice requires focus and concentration to hear, so in my mind it makes sense to meditate to clear my mind after prayer. Stilling my mind will help me hear His voice more easily.
How to Meditate, Rob Style
Get some privacy if possible. If it's not possible, don't be afraid to just tell people around you that you're going to check out and meditate for a few minutes. If they ask why, especially your children, tell them! Find your pose. Make sure you're comfortable. Shut your eyes. Take a few long, deep breaths, and let them out slowly. Breathe naturally, and just focus your attention on your breath for a few minutes, or at least until you feel your mind settling down. It takes practice, like anything else worth doing. Your mind will want to drift to the next thing on your to-do list, or what you're going to get her wife for her birthday, or one of a million other things. Don't get frustrated, just bring your attention back to your breath. Your mind will wander again...just bring it back. Keep this up. You'll find after some practice you can easily get your mind to settle and focus on your breath within a very short period of time.
When we focus on our breath, what we're really doing is focusing our whole attention on RIGHT NOW. It is impossible to feel anxiety for right now, as anxiety is worry over future things, right? It's impossible to feel regret for right now, as regret is an emotion about a past mistake, right? Meditation with focus on our breathing keeps us in the present moment. It opens us up consciously and sub-consciously. In my experience it also opens us up to hear God's messages to us.
Prayer and Meditation Like Peanut Butter and Jelly
If you make a consciously mindful attempt to use prayer and meditation like I've described here, I KNOW it will have positive impact on your health and wellness immediately. Your problems aren't all going to go away instantly. God may need you to continue to be in pain for reasons only He knows, but He can make you stronger and able to bear it. He can and will help you bear your burdens so well that you don't feel them any longer. He can direct you to be able to say the exact right word that your teenager needs to talk him off of a ledge, real or figurative. He can help you forgive your wife's slight, or your husband's thoughtless rebuke. A separation from Him during this life was necessary, but He does not, nor will He ever leave us to ourselves. But we have to reach for Him. Think about what you need most in life. Pray about it. Then listen.
A Few Experiences with Prayer
Whenever I consider prayer and my experience with it, there are always two specific occurences that come to my mind foremost, so I'd like to share those with you briefly.
The first, when I was 9-10 years old, my friend Rusty and I were out playing in the desert areas around my hometown of Farmington, NM. There was an oil or gas rig platform built in a spot where they had to cut into the mountain to make enough level space for the rig. Rusty and I decided to try to "mountain climb" our way across this almost verticle cut into the mountain from one side to the other. It was treacherous to say the least, and we were cutting across this man-made cliff probably 25 feet off the rig platform. About half-way across we found that we couldn't go forward or back. We were stuck right there, and we were far enough away from anything that nobody would hear our shouts. Well, I said a prayer, and without conscious intention, started climbing UP. The top was well over 100 feet up. Any progress up also meant the further we would fall. We picked our way up to within 10 feet or so of the top and again got stranded, only now we were like 75 feet high! Again I said a prayer. Immediately, my attention was directed to a swing set chain that I had for some reason swung around my shoulders as we left the house to go play in the desert. I had never done that before, nor ever would again. But at that time, I was able to take off that chain and loop it up and over a tree root sticking out of the ground above me. We were then both able to climb up and safetly reached the top. I'm sure we wore out some guardian angels that day! But I've known without a doubt that my prayers were heard and answered in real time! Even faster than a 5G connection...back in 1981 or so!
The second experience was when I was a little older. Some of my high school friends and I, along with two of their older siblings, drove in a little pickup out to Navajo Lake. There was a dirt road that took us 15 or 20 miles way around to the East side of the lake where we could play in the lake and have it all to ourselves. Well we got way back in there went down a successively steeper and steeper road until we were just in a place where that little two wheel drive pickup should have never been. We tried for hours to get that truck up those roads, but there was no way. Obviously in the mid-1980's there weren't any cell phones. Nobody knew where we were. My friend's older sister and I decided to try to walk back to the main road and find help. We were 15-20 miles from the road, hadn't seen or heard anyone all day, it was summer in the New Mexico desert, and we had not one drop of water. We went three or four miles and both realized that we were in serious trouble. We knew we needed help and she suggested we have a prayer. We knelt down in the middle of the road and she began, "Heavenly Father, we're in trouble and need help...". Those were the only words she got out before we both opened our eyes and looked at each other. We heard a vehicle coming our direction. Within a few minutes we were in the back of big jacked up jeep with monster tires pulling out that old pickup. With cold drinks. Friends of friends who just happened to be testing out some new gear on that old road that day. Prayer works! In my further experience, it doesn't always work that fast, but it works nonetheless!
God was aware of and heard the prayer of a little boy stuck on a cliff. He knew some of his crazy children would need to be rescued from probable heat exhaustion. In the 30-40 years since those experiences, I know He knows soooo much more! He knows and cares about each of us individually. He speaks the language of ROB perfectly! He knows EXACTLY what I need most! And He knows YOU the same way. Reach for Him. Think. Pray. Listen. Tap into the very real power of prayer and meditation.
Thanks again for joining me today. I would sure love to hear your own stories and experiences in the comments below, or just email them over to me.
Until next time...
PEACE!
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