God's Love is Oceanic!

I spent the last week at the ocean, celebrating my 23rd wedding anniversary with Kristi.

I love the ocean! Water as far as I can see and merging into the sky at the horizon. Wave after wave in rhythm - they never stop coming ashore and sounding in my soul.

God's love is oceanic! It's everywhere. It's the rhythm of life. It's our source of life. It sings in our soul - if we let it.

I love to be still before the ocean and breathe in deep... To listen... To feel... To pray... To be immersed in God's love...

If you don't live near the ocean go to a lake or a river, a mountain or meadow. Open your soul to God and smile in the sanctuary of his Spirit.

Hurry Sickness

Hurry sickness is rampant today in our culture. We rush from thing to thing. We try to get more done in less time. We use adrenaline (and caffeine) to pump us up and makes us feel alive and powerful.

Hurry sickness is bad for our health. It diminishes soul. And it destroys our relationships with one another and with God.

For most of my life I've done this. But I've been learning to stay out of the fast lane, to walk slower, and to pause to breathe and to pray.

In the Gospels I see that Jesus was never in a hurry - except at the end of his life when he headed toward Jerusalem to embrace his cross! (We tend to do the opposite by hurring into pleasures and achievements and refusing to deny ourselves.) Jesus always had time to enjoy people and to care for them. He always had time to pray.

What a joy it is when we learn to enjoy the moment with God!

What's your experience?

Talk to Your Soul in Prayer, Part 2

Eleven times in his prayers the Psalmist talks to himself with the cry, "O My Soul."

Interestingly, the eleven prayers appear in the Psalter in a meaningful order that group into three types of "O My Soul" prayers, each representing a step in an intimate prayer life. The three A's of connecting deeply with God are: Awareness, Attunement, and Appreciativeness:

1. Open up to God (Awareness): "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5)
2. Find Rest in God (Attunement): "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him" (Psalm 62:5; Psalm 116:7)
3. Give Praise to God (Appreciativeness): "Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name" (Psalm 103:1; also Psalm 103:2, 22; 104:1, 35; 146:1)

Do you pray to God in these ways?

Talk to Your Soul in Prayer, Part 1

In the Psalms, the Bible's great "soul book," the psalmist talks to his soul (as if it were another person) as he prays to God. He recruits his soul to be alert before God:
“Awake, my soul! Awake harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn” (Psalm 57:8)

Praying the Psalms I discovered that eleven times the Psalmist awakens his soul to God by crying out, "O my soul!"

I have found it helpful to talk to my soul in prayer, to get myself to be alert before God so that I can connect with him and follow Christ. Praying the Psalms really helps me to awaken to God's presence.

What helps to awaken your soul to God?