.Daily DEVOTIONS WITH GOD                                                                                       Barry's Blog - May 9,2016

MINDFUL CHRISTIANITY

“There’s nothing special about the present moment except that it is all we have.”

In a relationship with God, I can only be present with God in the now or present moment. Time has no beginning or end, but I experience time in my mind as the past, present or future. Instead of living in the present moment I fret over the past or worry about the future. In my relationship with God, I learned how to practice the presence of God like Brother Lawrence. I learned to let go of my past and future. I learned to focus on the Eternal Now of God.

In two thousand years of church history, there are numerous ways of explaining how we experience the inner life of Christ in our hearts. There are monks, mystics, contemplatives and countless millions of ordinary Christians who found the path to an intimate relationship with God.

The early church used the term “watchfulness” as a spiritual way to guard the heart against the thoughts that attack our walk with Christ. St.Hesychios a priest from the 8th century wrote, “Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart….If we are conscientious of this, we can gain much experience and knowledge of spiritual warfare.

I learned to practice being mindful of Christ in the present moment. I released all my troubling thoughts of my past to God. I also let go of my fears for the future. I focused as best I could to live fully alive to God at the moment. I call it being present in the “Eternal Now” of God.

Mindful Christianity is the spiritual discipline of paying attention on purpose with the intention of being acutely aware of experiencing Christ’s presence in our heart moment by moment.

My hope is you will be able to lay aside every thought and practice whatever discipline of meditation or prayer and live in the Eternal Now.

Quote: Charles Genoud