The Identity Exchange – Daily Prayer of Affirmation lists scripture reference Psa 118:7
“The LORD is for me among those who help me; “
relates to the passage in the Daily Prayer of Affirmation segment that says “There may be many challenges, but I choose to believe the truth that You are with me and for me; that You are always working in my life for my benefit; that you are the life and the light of the world in me.”
Both that He is with me, and for me are important, but this is where words are starting to fail me. As a part of Catalyst, part of our reading is “The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation” by Jim Wilder and Michel Hendricks. In that book, it talks about how in church, and in life, ever since The Enlightenment, we judge things by the standpoints of explanation, making sense, being understandable, being supported scientifically. But, they also, talk about things in the design of humans, that science has been able to detect recently, which has to do with how people connect, without using the verbal/language processing centers. The connection is fast and powerful. And it can be developed. In fact they have exercises to connect with God and others that way. But, it involves memories, and feelings, not words or narratives.
The Lord taught me some of this through circumstances that I initially thought were interrupting my progress towards Catalyst. I ended up with a medical condition that had a sudden onset. And it basically caused me pain, about every 30-45 minutes. The first or 2nd night, I would wake up in pain, and quickly learned to wake up in pain, with terror following right on the heels of the pain. It would subside in a few minutes, only to reappear 30-45 minutes later. But Jesus “showed up” in just a few cycles of pain then terror. He connected to me through words in my mind. Very simple things. “Relax”, “I am right here”, “I am not going anywhere”, “You are going to be OK”, “We will get through this together”, “Let go” “Trust Me” … It was amazing. His peace would come into my heart. I so much needed and cherished that He did that every time the pain woke me up. At one point of Jesus reassuring me with small and yet sure assurances was just so good, that I offered to get up an journal about it. I was dead tired from such disrupted sleep. And I was relieved that He said that my logical mind wouldn’t understand what He was doing. And that He was doing “an indelible relational work”. Truly, He was making real the peace that passes understanding. Plus, I received a sense of safety at receiving from Him things that my logic, and verbal capacities couldn’t hold, but were treasured memories of time together.
So, that motivates me to try to just spend time re-experiencing memories. And when the Lord and I are making memories, to ask Holy Spirit to guide me in capturing the detail of the experience. It happens too with other people. And it is a change. I am a guy. A 72 year old guy. But, guys work on rusted things, and wrenches slip, and knuckles get busted, and so I have never thought much about the experience of things, and the feelings of things. In The Immanuel Approach to inner healing listening prayer, and Immanuel Journaling, you start out with an appreciation memory (as appreciation opens us up relationally), and it can be just a wonderful experience, or a specific wonderful experience where there was an awareness of God’s involvement. If it was just sitting on a dock in the warm sun, a gentle breeze blowing, and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore, you can bet that Jesus was there. So, it is simple to ask Him where He was, and allow Him or Holy Spirit to guide you into an awareness (since He is soverign, it is as much of an awareness as He chooses).
Some techniques have you “put” Jesus somewhere. I think that they are wrong. Jesus was there, and know exactly where, what He was feeling, and anything He was doing. He is good. So trust Him.
I should mention that it is OK to ask Jesus to do something in the memory. Like, to hold you. And if He does, He does. You can get into that He knows our thoughts from afar, or before they are on our tongues. So, He may know that you will ask that 5 years in the future when you are remembering the memory and asking Him to reveal Himself, so He hears, and answers it, sometimes by doing it, and sometimes not. Remember, He is not bound by time like we are. The bottom line is that He is still sovereign. But, He has a design, like the Daily Affirmation Prayer says, that is for our benefit. And you could also say that it is kind. But, remember Psalm 23 includes being walked through the valley of the shadow of death, in such a way that we learn not to fear, and to receive comfort from Him. So benefit does not always result in getting what we ask for. Sometimes, we get something so much better.
Tomorrow, or soon, the next one will be on 1 Cor 2. The Daily Affirmation Prayer and the scripture references focus on 1 Cor 2:16, but 1 Cor 2:10 jumped off the page to me. So we will focus there next.
Jesus Day by Day 