Good Morning and welcome to Dr Ing’s Sunday Soul Connection,
So as always, I'd like to applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes out of your busy Sundays to join with me and others as we join hearts and minds across the airwaves; to consciously come into communion and connection with the ground of our being God in us as us.
Last week the Sacred text I shared from Acts spoke about the power that comes from the Holy Spirit which allows us to stand strong for the things of God. I said that we would be looking in more detail what that means in the weeks to come.
As I contemplated what are the strong things of God it was easy or obvious to think about God's omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. These are great words, that we bandy about and truly it doesn't really take us further or deeper into understanding what are the strong things of God; what are the deepest things of God which is referred to in the Sacred Texts I’ll share.
We are trying to use our finite minds, our finite way of understanding, to comprehend that which is Infinite. When the Bible says “My ways are not your ways, or my thoughts are higher than your thoughts”, it speaks into the fact that there is no way under the sun, we will fully comprehend the all-ness, the fullness and the totality of all that God is.
That’s why no religious tradition or one religion can ever, ever have the whole concept of what the Divine, the Infinite is. It may have a bit of an understanding or some knowledge but total knowledge or understanding.
I've always loved the description. I think it was Matthew Fox who wrote God is like an underground stream, where different religions draw up from it’s well thinking it’s drawing up all that God and not just a fraction of it.
So each has just an aspect and a partial understanding. And so, this morning, we look at what are the deep things of God. I want to put it in the context of as much as we can try and comprehend, as much as we can understand given our finite comprehension of something that is totally beyond us.
So I want to kick off with our sacred texts.
Sacred Text
I Corinthians 2:10-16 NKJV
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We keep using our finite mind, to think and try and understand things. We're using it with words and words, we've already established are a limited construct that we've created that truly cannot define and describe the attribute that is God.
God is so much more than our limited language can give us the understanding or the experience. So we have to allow ourselves be opening up, to discern, to understand, to receive the deepest things of God via God's Spirit via the Divine Mind that is in all of us all of the time.
We forget in our moments of trials and tribulation, that we have access to the Divine Intelligence, to receive Its imprint, the direction, the whatever is the guidance, whatever it is, we need in that moment.
Instead, we're using as the author said, the thoughts of the natural man, instead of using and accessing the Spirit of the Divine, that is God in us as us. We have access to the deepest things of God, through, God's Spirit, that God is not separate from us. Our God doesn’t plays favourites, blessing some and not others.
No, God is ever available and ever waiting for us to open up. To allow ourselves to be open to the spirit that is within us. That is ever speaking, ever directing, ever inspiring, but we have tuned out.
A friend sent me a quote this week. She sends out quotes to what she calls her tribe, and I'm included in that. This quote she sent me, I took exception to, the quote said, “no matter how good your heart is, eventually, you have to start treating people the way they treat you.” I texted that I disagreed, that is not the message or the teachings of Jesus. Jesus spoke that If someone sued you for your coat, give them your cloak as well. If they slapped your cheek, turn the other cheek. She texted me back and said that basically, I was entitled to my opinion. I was entitled to disagree. And she said potato I said potata. I said, you know, you’re right this is my opinion and my truth. It doesn't have to be your truth. But this is the truth. I choose to hold and live by.
I share that because if we are seeking to discern the deeper things of God, as Jesus continuously taught and demonstrated, then we cannot block off that which God is at the essence and at the core at the centre of our being, which is love.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you should be a dogs body, or that you should let people walk all over you or mistreat you. But what I am advocating for, is if we are to express the deepest things of God or stand strong in the things of God, the one thing we know that God is, is Love.
We cannot fully comprehend what that means. Because we come with all about conditions about what love is. In our relationships, we know how much love we want to give no more than they're giving. It needs to have this attached to it. We only know conditional love.
The Love that Jesus taught was unconditional love; unconditional acceptance. Yes, there were people that did not resonate with him, and He simply took himself away from their company. He didn't shut them out or exclude them from love. Love is one of the deepest things of God. It is so deep it is hard for us to comprehend and understand it.
When we are looking to be more of who and what we were created to be, we are required to express this first of the many attributes we try to attribute to God, about God, even though we have finite understanding of it.
God is love and that love is so different from human love. It is a love that has no ending or beginning. No depth or limitation, no condition. If we are to stand strong in the things of God or express the deepest things of God, then surely we have to be looking at any action, any behaviours, any thoughts, any beliefs that could cause us to be acting differently from what we know is of God.
Jesus, our teacher told us that we were to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. The Father that is within us. We can all acknowledge that it's really tough. It's hard, because there are people out there, that we consider undeserving of our love and undeserving of our forgiveness, undeserving of our time undeserving…
But if we are to express the deepest things of God, if we have to stand on the strong things of God, then we have to continuously be be excavating, digging out, letting go anything and everything that will block or hinder our expression of the divine.
There was a beautiful quote that I sent out with the text notifications yesterday from March Cooley who says “when you realise that you are deeply loved by God. It enables you to love deeply.” If we know, accept and believe in the deeper things of God, that God is love, then surely, surely, we have to be expressing that same love in who we are, as we are, and to all we encounter.
There is another quote that I want to share by Kevin Kerr who said, “God loves all of us so much, that we are given the choice in each moment to choose between the ultimate divine truth or mental programming of the ego.” You see that mental programming of the ego is what that quote that my friend shared. Well, you've hurt me or you've mistreated me, therefore, I'm going to start treating you the same way. That's the mental programming of the ego. The tit for tat way of being.
The programming of spirit is to love. When Jesus was asked by Peter, how many times should we forgive seven? Jesus says no 70 times seven. Always, always always, always the message and admonishment is Love, to learn to love.
I want to share two poems authors and titles unknown:
Poem
I am The wind in your hair,
The Sunbeam in the sky,
The moss in the trees,
The grass beneath your feet,
The birds that fly above,
I am Love…
He loves you supernaturally,
beyond your comprehension,
and above the world’s understanding
of what love is.
There is nothing
that anyone can say or think about you that
can take that away from you, not even you.
There is no circumstance, calamity
or disaster where God’s love
cannot reach you
and hold you.
Story
”I’m one of those people who prays about everything,” I told my new teacher friend, Rae, as we sat on a bench in the hallway outside our classrooms. It was the end of the school day, and the students had long since gone home. That’s when Rae and I tended to sit and talk about everything and anything.
Newly married in 1969, my husband and I had just moved over a hundred miles from home in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, to the little town of Ridgway. I got a job as a third-grade teacher at the elementary school. Rae’s classroom was right across the hall from mine, and we immediately felt comfortable with each other, like old friends. She was also a newlywed, and new to the area herself.
Science of Mind Reading
That day, our conversation had turned to our faith. “I learned when I was just a child that God hears us and does answer prayer.” I told her what had made me believe this without a doubt.
“My family was watching the nightly news on television, when I learned of a Pennsylvania family who’d lost their home to fire,” I began. “A gas leak had caused an explosion. Thankfully no one was hurt, but their home was seriously damaged. I wanted to do something, but as a child, all I could do was pray. So every night before I went to bed, I knelt at the side of my bed and prayed for this family. I asked God and his angels to surround them and take care of them.
“After over a year of praying, I needed to know if my prayers had helped, so I asked God to let me know what had happened to that family. Did they ever get their house back? In a few weeks, God actually answered,” I told Rae.
“In the Sunday supplement of the newspaper there was a story about the very family for whom I had been praying and how they had made a complete recovery.” I sat back quietly, still astounded that God had provided me with the answer I needed.
“Describe the cover of the magazine,” Rae said. I thought maybe she had seen the same story. “On the cover was a photo of the father with his son sitting on his lap.” Rae remembered the cover well. “That was my father and my brother,” she said. “Ronni, it was my family’s house that exploded and burned. You were praying for us.”
Over 50 years have passed since Rae and I discovered what was at the core of our deep friendship, a friendship that has lasted even after she moved clear across the state. A friendship that started with prayer long before we ever met.
Jesus’ commandment was very simple - it was that we were to love as He loved us. That we were to love God with all our heart, mind and soul. That we were to love our neighbour and that's the commandment that he gave us to love. He didn't tell us to love only those that were close to us, or we thought deserved our love. No one was excluded or exempted.
BODY MEDITATION
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SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
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MOVEMENT PRAYER 3
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BUDDHIST REFLECTION
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Rumination
Leave the temporary love, Because real love is God’s love. Rumi
Benediction
When the noise and haste surround you
and threaten to take you hostage,
May God’s gentle voice soothe you
and guide you to a place
of quiet strength;
When the days seem cold and dark,
and the nights unbelievably long,
May God’s smile illumine
and warm you from within;
When you feel alone and dismal,
May God send someone to you with a daisy.
May you truly go forth in joy
and be led back in peace;
May all creation sing around you;
And may the weeds of mourning
turn into flowers
wherever you walk.
Song: VOUS by Most High