Just Look Up!

This week I began the first of several monthly themes for our Sunday services at Faith Baptist which will be drawn from traditional Christian spiritual disciplines. There are a wide variety of spiritual disciplines - over 60 are listed in the very helpful resource that is The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Calhoun. These include everything from fasting, sabbath, and worship to journaling, labyrinth prayer, and chastity. Some are specific forms of prayer, others are particular ways to engage with the Bible, and some are community-oriented approaches to discipling and being discipled. But for February, as we hope the end of our pandemic isolation is approaching, I chose what might be the simplest and most essential: practicing the presence of God.

If you want the full explanation of that that is and some of the Biblical rationale for doing it you can check out this week’s message.

But at its core “practicing the presence” is just thinking about God often. Remember that God is with you. Acknowledge Him at various times during your day. Look up. As one of the best-known practitioners of this discipline, Brother Lawrence, recommended to one younger man: “Let him think of God as often as he can, especially when he is in the greatest danger. Just a little lifting up of the heart is enough.”

I wrote most of this week's Overflow from my parent-in-law’s home because our power hadn’t been restored as of Saturday night after this week’s heavy hit of freezing rain. The time without electricity at home was a reminder of just how difficult it normally is to “unplug.” It was telling just how much easier it was to spend part of the morning reading books and carrying kids around and being part of “snuggle-mania” with my girls, because I couldn’t do much else! Normally there would be laundry and house-cleaning and jumping on and off the computer and phone to make and respond to messages and attempts to check a few tasks off the stubbornly persistent to-do list. There are always enough demands and distractions to fill any amount of time, and even finding small amounts of time for things we know are important can be hard on certain days.

But we should find time for those things that change, improve, or transform everything else we do. And one of those important thing is plugging in to our source of real life - Christ. Practicing the presence of God is a way of bringing God into our everyday lives. It doesn’t require extensive periods of silence and solitude (although these are wonderful if you can find them and use them to connect to God). Instead it helps us develop an awareness that God is with us as we regularly think of God and speak to God as our lives unfold.

In her Spiritual Discipline Handbook Adele Calhoun offers some reflection questions and spiritual exercises that go beyond what I noted in my first message on this topic. Some of these may be helpful, so consider the following questions:

Where do your thoughts go when they aren’t focused on work or diverted by amusement? What do these thoughts reveal about your concerns and priorities?

How aware of you of the possibility of meeting God during your work day? What is it like for you when God shows up at an unexpected moment?

How easy is it for God to get your attention? When are you best able to hear God’s still, small voice?

What would it look like for you to intentionally seek deeper intimacy with God?

And here are some other suggestions for practicing the presence of God:

Dedicate some task you are doing to God. Talk to him about the task before you begin and again after you are done. Do you become any more aware of God in the process? How?

Offer all of yourself to God for the day ahead. Throughout the day ask yourself if you are still living your intention to be in God’s presence. Do not be discouraged when you stray for your intention to live in his presence; simply begin again. God loves for you to turn your heart back to Him.

When a song comes to mind during the day, pay attention to it. Could this song be a word of God to you? If it is, tell God what it means to you to have him come near you in this way.

Decide to stop several times throughout your day to pay attention to God and practice his presence. Set a clock to remind you. Spend five minutes reading Scripture, praying or just being with Jesus. What is this like for you?

Develop some prayers that help you stay awake to God. For instance, find a verse or prayer that is your waking prayer, your in-the-shower prayer, your dressing prayer, your cooking prayer, your driving prayer and so on. Let these prayers lead you into deeper

There are many other ways that you could also try to “look up” depending on the flow of your life - what will you try?

Devotional

This is African Heritage Month in Nova Scotia, which I’ll try to pick up in today’s devotional content.

Opening Prayer

God, we thank you for the inspiration of Jesus. Grant that we will love you with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love our neighbours as we love ourselves, even our enemy neighbours. And we ask you, God, in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, to be with us in our going out and our coming in, in our rising up and in our lying down, in our moments of joy and in our moments of sorrow, until the day when there shall be no sunset and no dawn. Amen. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Psalm Reading

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will boast in the Lord; the humble will hear and be glad. 3 Proclaim the Lord’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me and rescued me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are[a] radiant with joy; their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles. 7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and rescues them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him! 9 You who are his holy ones, fear the Lord, for those who fear him lack nothing. 10 Young lions lack food and go hungry, but those who seek the Lord will not lack any good thing.

11 Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 12 Who is someone who desires life, loving a long life to enjoy what is good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. 14 Turn away from evil and do what is good; seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help. 16 The face of the Lord is set against those who do what is evil, to remove[c] all memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous[d] cry out, and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. 18 The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.

Song: Listen

(By Owen Lee, worship leader at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Upper Hammonds Plains)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIoY0F9fZ2g

Gospel Reading

"So do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:31-34)

Epistle Reading

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways. (James 1:2-8)

Closing Prayer

Thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being, we humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our hearts, souls and minds, and we have not loved our neighbours as Christ loved us. We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ. We often give in order to receive. We love our friends and hate our enemies. We go the first mile but dare not travel the second. We forgive but dare not forget. And so as we look within ourselves, we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against you. But thou, O God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know your will. Give us the courage to do your will. Give us the devotion to love your will. In the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray. Amen. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Practical Support

New Horizons Baptist Church in Halifax (formerly Cornwallis Street Baptist Church) is one of the leading churches of the African United Baptist Association, a fellow part of the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. They are in the midst of a major renovation project on their 120-year-old building. You can read about that project here and also donate if you felt led to support their efforts and stand in solidarity with them in that way.

https://newhorizonsbaptist.ca/about/renovation/

Various quotations from:

Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (Transforming Resources) (p. 61). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.