Meditation

We all want a happy and fruitful life. We all want to be "happy all the time." We all want a life of calmness, peace, and inner satisfaction. However, I wonder how many of us are willing to daily the practice of having this type of life. I know that we all would like to just have this kind of life "appear" magically the moment we make a decision to follow the way of Jesus. However, even Jesus had a daily practice that few are willing to follow:

While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.

Mark 1:35

In prayer and meditation we train the mind, the brain, the spirit to understand and know the ways of God. It is in the stillness and quietness of the mind that we will find God speaking to us. It is in those times that God can use the moments of our life, the reading of scriptures, the things we feed our mind with, to bring an inner peace and calmness that "passes all understanding." We hone our peace of mind in prayer and meditaion. We are able to take the outer circumstances of life and understand what is real and what is really a delusion. We begin to understand that we do not have to have things to be happy. We do not have to have money to be happy. We do not have to make the circumstances of our life match some predetermined plan we have. No, it is within the training ground of prayer and meditation that we are transformed to arrived at a blessed state that the very luster of our inner peace protects us from any worry or concern about the circumstances around us. It is here that we actually experience:

I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4:11-13

So today think about submitting yourself to times of quiet. Think about spending some time each day in solitude, quietness of mind, prayer, paying attention to your thoughts to allow God to bring you to a place of even mindedness. Practicing this connection to God daily is the only way to think like God thinks and find that the circumstances of your life have no power over the spirit of God in you. So take time to meditate on this everyday:

Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Philippians 4:8

Train your brain. Train your spirit. Feed them both well and keep them fit for peace to have a home.

Namaste'