A PASTOR'S PRESCRIPTION...
GET ALONE WITH GOD, your dear Heavenly Father. Jesus instructed us to "go into your room and shut the door" and pray. This would apply to meditation too. Get away! Go to your bedroom, a closet, downstairs, upstairs, a room at church, wherever you and your God can commune together. In these days of multiple distractions (*see Tozer below) it is imperative we make or find such a place. Revive the discipline. This may not eliminate all your pills, but very possibly some of them. "Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!" Psalms 105:4.
In His presence ponder this Bible phrase....
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." (Selah - pause, think about this - Psalms 46:10-11).
Now, open your Bible to Proverbs 3:5-8; 25,26.....
PONDER these words
PRAY over these words
PRACTICE these words
Do the same with Psalm 91:1-4; Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:4-9
PONDER...PRAY...PRACTICE...(take time to be holy...or to behold HIM)
THEN, say or hum these words....
Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.
Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
REPEAT THIS PROCESS OFTEN, your well being is at stake as well as your testimony before family and friends.
Dick D. Christen
* Tozer ....But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. --Matthew 6:6
Among the enemies to devotion none is so harmful as distractions. Whatever excites the curiosity, scatters the thoughts, disquiets the heart, absorbs the interests or shifts our life focus from the kingdom of God within us to the world around us--that is a distraction; and the world is full of them. Our science-based civilization has given us many benefits but it has multiplied our distractions and so taken away far more than it has given....
The remedy for distractions is the same now as it was in earlier and simpler times, viz., prayer, meditation and the cultivation of the inner life. The psalmist said "Be still, and know," and Christ told us to enter into our closet, shut the door and pray unto the Father. It still works....
Distractions must be conquered or they will conquer us. So let us cultivate simplicity; let us want fewer things; let us walk in the Spirit; let us fill our minds with the Word of God and our hearts with praise. In that way we can live in peace even in such a distraught world as this. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The Set of the Sail, 129-132.
"Lord, it's certainly harder and harder to shut out the distractions of an increasingly science-based civilization. Help me to cultivate simplicity, to be satisfied with fewer things, and to find the inner peace that You can give in a life of prayer and meditation. Amen."
A. W. Tozer Sermon: Overcome Distractions
