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The Holy Spirit and my mediations.




Ruminating in the rabbit warrens of my mind.

I am still thinking about the scripture that talks about the renewing of our mind.(Romans 12:2) When I was young, we Pentecostals would remove our minds from situations, saying rather "that the Holy Spirit will reveal all things to us", so in essence thinking was an optional extra. I for one, have never really been comfortable with this process and would rather believe that the Holy Spirit would guide and lead my thinking and be part of the thought process, not distinct from it.

This last weekend I was reading the Saturday morning newspaper, when I came across an article that talked of  researches at two universities who have found that meditation and mindfulness can be very dangerous for our well being. This in contrast is completely opposite to what the advocates of meditation say. The researches explained that by emptying the mind and setting the mind to think of just one thing resulted in increased stress levels and the unleashing in the mind of deep dark (my words) anxieties that are more harmful.

For me these modern new age reasoning's have always been a bit wacky. Meditation encourages us to empty our minds, yet Mindfulness encourages to think of one particular thing. Surely in my mind this is an oxymoron that takes us round in circles and never really gets us anywhere.

Once again my Christian beliefs and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life trumps that of this world, but is now confirmed by non Christian academic researches as mentioned in the newspaper article.  The Hebrew word for meditate is completely opposite to the rubbish spouted by new age gurus and Buddhists, rather it talks about thinking about pondering and even speaking it out. It even intimates the idea of chewing the cud, no mindless emptying of the mind but rather a filling up with the things of God. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If I am thinking about and speaking Gods word out loud I am meditating in the way that God wants me to, there is a positive result, I build my faith. Another added bonus is that the rubbish, those deep dark anxieties get filtered out, the bible tells me 2Tim 1:7 that "...God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind."

How does all this ruminating help me as a Christian leader? Well I am convinced that Godly meditation is good for us and is a habit that we need to get into on a daily basis. It is in our mediation's that we hear from him and the Holy Spirit guides us to that next best thing that he has in store for us. But I also believe that the very process of Godly meditation brings about a peace and a strength that blasts the feelings of depression and anguish that seeks to prevail itself upon our psyche in this life.

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