Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Being Mindful

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I won’t deny it, I am a technophile, and I have a particular fondness for the Apple products. I’m currently writing on a MacBook Air (the best laptop I have ever used).  I carry iPad Air 2 wherever I go – its great for reading, writing, watching Netflix, and playing a few games when time permits.  And I have an iPhone, useful not just for calls and messaging, but it is a decent camera, and it has my calendar and tracks my running and diet. All very useful.

Recently, there was an update to the Apple Health App.  This is an app that tracks data from other apps you use to give you a report of your overall health and activity.  In the update, the app breaks down your health information into four categories: Activity (which monitors your physical activity and exercise), Nutrition (which tracks what you report for caloric and nutritional intake); Sleep (helping you maintain a consistent routine for bed and get a good night sleep), and finally, Mindfulness.  It’s this last category that intrigued me.

The Mindfulness data is all about “quieting your mind and relaxing your body.”  Apple describes it thus:

Finding a moment to take a few deep breaths and quiet your mind is a great way to relieve stress and improve your overall health. That’s what mindfulness is all about. Many apps on iPhone, as well as apps like Breathe on Apple Watch, help you decompress and stay centered throughout your day.
Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

How Zen!

Doesn’t it seem a bit ironic?  It’s important for you to decompress, to unplug, to “center your mind”, and hey, we’ve got an app for that.  Just to write this article today, I’ve had to turn on the “Do Not Disturb” feature on my phone, my iPad, and my computer, just to get an hours worth of uninterrupted time.  The very things that cause distractions are now telling me they want me to focus?!?!?

I get it.  We need time away from the screen, time without an electronic devise in our hands.  We need time to quietly think and regroup.  Surprisingly, we need to be reminded to stop and take a deep breath every now and then.  But is the recommended resources that they suggest that are so bothersome.

So what are they’re recommended ways of “quieting” or “centering”?  They recommend apps like “Headspace” which helps you with guided meditation, or “Grokker” which links videos on meditation, yoga, and healthy cooking. It seems, though, that they’ve gone to great lengths to be sure not to say the word “prayer.”

The problem with all this pseudo-spirituality is its focus.  The focus is always on the self.

I must quiet myself. I must find strength in myself. 

I must find the way to be present in the moment, for I am the center of myself. 

Only when you can quiet yourself can you find the strength in yourself to better yourself.  

The destructive lie of things like zen meditation, yoga, and centering, is that their focus is entirely on the self, even if they dress it up in all sorts of Christianese.

I had a high school student in a youth group point out the fault in this kind of thinking.  He shared with the group one evening. “You know, if you reach far enough down inside yourself, eventually all you’ll get is a handful of _____!” (I can’t write what he said here, but you get the drift).

That’s what we need to remember here.  Jeremiah 17:9 tells us the heart is deceitful, it cannot be trusted.  I know that left to myself, I haven’t the strength to face the trials and tasks ahead of me. I’m just not strong enough.  I’m not smart enough.  And doggonit, Stuart Smalley, all the daily affirmations in the world will never help me overcome my biggest problem – myself.

Instead of centering on myself I need to find my center in Christ. I need to hear the words again and again, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).  God is at the center of the universe, I am not.  I don’t just need to empty myself of all my negative thoughts, I need to be filled with the Spirit of Holiness, and only then will I know peace, only then will I have the strength to face the day.  Yes I need to quiet my mind and my heart regularly, frequently, but not to be stilled by the silence of the moment, but to be filled with the Word of God.

This is what prayer does.  While meditation and centering draws you deeper into yourself, prayer draws us back to God, fixes our hearts on Him and on His righteousness, and helps us to see our lives in the light of His word.  In prayer, we begin to see how our motives, our passions, have gone askew, how we have been self-centered rather than God-centered, and prayer reorients us to Him.  Prayer is finding our strength, our foundation, our peace – not in ourselves – but in our union with Christ Jesus.

So, indeed, be mindful.  Still yourself, not in the quietness of your own mind, but in the presence of the Holy God. Spend a good portion of your day mindful of your need for the strength that only God can provide, and be mindful of the wonderful love of your blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace,

SDG

Some Post-Election Thoughts

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“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded,
set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
(1 Peter 1:13, ESV)

The dust from Election Day is settling, and there is a President Elect.  While praying for a peaceful transition of power, I also recognize that there is a lot of pain, disappointment, heartache, and grief.  Of course, some are rejoicing that their candidate won, and others are dejected because their candidate lost.  And then you have those who liked neither of the two leading candidates, and while they may be happy that one candidate lost, they can’t quite be happy that the other candidate won.  It’s a really strange time. I didn’t get my sticker for having  voted, but had I a choice, I would have picked this one:

cried

The Social-Media platforms are on fire today with flaming arrows coming from either side.  There are two basic comments being made. Those whose candidate lost are lamenting how these uneducated, unsophisticated, basket of deplorable troglodytes could actually come together to pull off this upset vote.  Those whose candidate won are acting as if the world is finally right again, that Utopia is finally within reach, and that the losing side are finally getting their due.  The thing is, what I’ve just written could have been said regardless of who had won the election, and it will be the reaction every time there is an election of this magnitude.

With this in mind, I thought I’d offer a Pastoral word on avoiding this Post-Election Division and Dysphoria.  These are in no particular order, and since I was up pretty late awaiting the election returns, I simply pray they make some sense to you and are helpful in these coming days.

  1. We need to repent.  Both sides of the ticket.  We have calumniated those we disagree with, assumed they have the worst intentions, and harbored hatred in our hearts.  If you think you haven’t done this, ask yourself, “When did I honestly and sincerely pray for the candidate of the opposing party?”  We tend to objectify those who differ from us politically, and refer to them as “They” or “Them,” and feel no compunction of saying the most vile things about them.  Is this how a Christian should speak of others?  Let us repent, and commit to pray for and support our elected officials, regardless of whether we voted for them.
  2. Avoid two tendencies that are sides of the same coin.  The first is the tendency to vilify the other.  As I mentioned above, this is an easy trap to fall into.  Let us rise above this, for the sake of the grace that has been given to us in Christ Jesus.  Paul writes in Romans 12:14-18, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:14–18).
    The other tendency is to idolize the victor.  Our candidate is the only one who can fix the economy, stop global warming, ensure our liberty, bring and end to war and usher in a season of peace; Our candidate will save the world!  That may seem extreme when all crammed together, but individually, they have all been said at one point or another.  If you’re walking away from the election results thinking that finally the dark clouds have passed and we’re about to enter 4 years of unprecedented growth, peace, and prosperity, then perhaps you’ve put your hopes in the wrong place.
    Let us remember Psalm 146 –
    “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;” (Psalm 146:3–7, ESV)
  3. Finally, let us not take our eyes off our goal, Jesus Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith.  I’d never survive if my hopes and fears were answered by the 2-year/4-year cycles of political elections.  All the promises made and broken, all the mud-slinging and campaigning – it gets to be too much. I heard someone today (the day after the election!) say something about the next presidential campaign starting a year from now.  Lord help us!
    Rather than ride these waves of the political storm, let us fix our eyes on Jesus.  Let us be the righteous ones who are like tree planted by streams of water (Psalm 1:3): firm, fixed, unwavering, unmovable.  Let us pursue the righteousness of Christ, that we may shine like the brightness of the sky above… like the stars forever and ever.  Let us grow in maturity in Christ, “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).

Knowing that Christ is our Lord and King, and that all these earthly kingdoms will rise and fall, let us walk in faith and obedience before him, loving Him by loving one another.  His reign is forever, and His power is great.  Therefore, keep calm, and carry on in faith!

Grace and peace,

SDG