You've Captured My Heart

In your presence, you've captured my heart
I've finally found the place where I am truly free
You are teaching me new songs for my soul to sing
Even in the storms of life you are with me

All I want is to be with you
All I want is to be where you are

You've captured my heart
You've captured my heart

You've picked me up so I can dance again
I'm going higher, soaring in your grace
You are taking me to places unknown
Walking by faith, I see your face

All I want is to be with you
All I want is to be where you are

You've captured my heart
You've captured my heart

In Your Presence

I wake up in the morning in your presence
I go through the day in your presence
I go to sleep in your presence.
I feel your tender mercies in your presence
I know your comfort and strength in your presence
I see your grace and mercy everywhere in your presence
I feel creation light in your presence

Your love lifts me higher in your presence
Your peace washes over me in your presence
Your grace floods my soul in your presence
Your Spirit are like waves of energy in your presence
Your peace gives me rest in your presence
Your joy makes me laugh in your presence
Your gentle touch is all I need in your presence

Prayer of the Heart

Come, O Christ my Light, and illumine my darkness.
Come, my Life, and revive me from death.
Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.
Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my sins,
kindling my heart with the flame of your love.
For you alone are my King and my Lord.

Dimitrii of Rostov, 17th century

Renewing the Mind and Healing the Soul

"The simplicity of God is greater than the complexity of man"

In my reading many of the great Christian mystics, two that show some interesting parallels and contrasts are Evagrius and Maximus and Confessor.  Evagrius wants to purify the mind and Maximus wants to purify the heart.  Prayer for Evagrius is a great spiritual battle against demons.  Evagrius looks on the negative side which we all must face.  Maximus on the other hand looks on the positive side.  It's about God's love shaping everything we do.  Maximus focus is on a deeper pure love that conquers the enemies from within us.

Evagrius and Maximus both speak of contemplation but for Evagrius, it is where we escape idle thoughts whereas for Maximus it's where we rest in the perfection of God's love.  Although both of these saints would say that one does not approach God by reason alone, Evagrious speaks more about the battle of the mind and Maximus of the battle for your heart.

In the end, there is a kind of movement in Maximus the Confessor's contemplation that takes us to the transfiguration of Christ.  This is not so much a linear movement as it is a lateral one, moving sideways in a kind of a spiral way to grasp the spiritual significance of our own transfiguration.  I was first introduced to this idea of a kind of spiritual spiral in the academy by Grant Osborne when it came to understanding the Bible.  His classic work The Hermeneutical Spiral became a classic explaining how the horizon of the text and the reader spiral towards each other over a sequence of events engaged together.

What I am just beginning to grasp is a kind of spirituality where either the Trinity is like three spirals (Celtic Trinity) or prayer flows in a spiral pattern like Angela of Foligno or Theresa of Avila seven mansions is a kind of lateral movement of spirals all converging into the center where the soul ascends to God.  Maybe my heart simply needs to receive this revelation for my mind cannot grasp it at this time.  I pray that a transformation of my heart by God's love would renew my mind as well.  I suspect the image or picture of a spiral in the spiritual realm is more a picture of how it appears to our spirit and not necessarily what it really looks like in its essence?

I know there is a danger here of so many pagan religious ideas that speak of a spiral or labyrinth of the soul or our psyche.  Satan always tries to counterfeit the real so I suspect there is a lot more to this perception of a spiral when it comes to the developing our mystical mind and faith.  Although this is beyond my comprehension in so many ways at the moment, I hope the Lord will give me more light and revelation on this issue in the future.  Maranatha!

Meditations from the Heart

I am deeply loved by God. 
I am one of a kind 
There is no one else like me.
I am precious in God's sight. 
He designed me and delights in me.

God has made me free, beautiful and holy.
I am fully loved and fully alive!
God wants me to live by love, not fear.

My soul is the place where God finds His space in me.
My soul waits for God and finds rest in God.
My friends ask me . . . 
My real friends challenge me with one question:
"How is it with your soul?"
What will be your answer?

Imaginations from the Spirit

It does not take a rocket scientist for people to look at the church today and see that it is in trouble.  There are four times as many churches closing as there are new ones starting.  There seems to be a lack of nerve and courage for many western Christians as the church continues to not disciple its own members much less produce the kind of environments that would disciple the community around them.  Where are the saints of God?  Where are the prophets and poets and dreamers of God?  It seems like when modern Christians read their Bible (if they read it at all), they lack imagination to engage the biblical text and the world around them.  I suspect there was more Christian imagination going on in the monestaries of the time people want to call "the dark ages" than the kind of stunted imaginations today that can't see what God is doing around them and fails to dream daring dreams for God.  So let me start with one example on how Christians need to "see" farther and go deeper when it comes to God's Word and how it works out in the world.

There is a incredible encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees over the Mosaic law and its meaning.  The whole issue concerns divorce and can people get divorced for almost any reason?  Jesus answers them in the nineteenth chapter of Matthew and tells them "what God has joined together, let no one separate."  There is so much more to say here but I want to focus on the follow-up question to Jesus about why did Moses give the permission to divorce like he did?  This was not just Moses words but a commandement given from God.  Jesus says in verse eight that "because of the hardness of your hearts, (God) permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

Jesus answers the question of why does God allow for divorce?  Because of the hardness of our hearts.  It is not God's will that people should get divorced, God hates divorce (check out the last chapter of the book of Malachi).  But doesn't God's Word give permission or says it's okay to do it?  Unless we understand the spiritual meaning of God's Word and read the Bible with spiritual eyes and not just eyes of flesh, we will miss both the intent and meaning of many Scriptures.  Some people get hung up on all the violence in the Bible, the brutal treatment of women at times, slavery, holy wars, and polygamy.  Why are these things in the Bible and why does it seems like the Bible condones or give permission for such things?  Because of the hardness of our hearts!  Until we start reading God's Word with out hearts and not just our heads, our hearts may stay hard and unchanged rather than being transformed by the heart of God.