A Mind at Rest Welcomes God!

Dear Trekker,

I spoke of wrestling last month with “love”. I am still wrestling over some things, feeling a bit like Jacob, who wrestled all night with God, exclaiming, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32)

But I need to backup a bit. The last few weeks I’ve been teaching an adult Sunday School class on the theme of “renewing our minds”. (Rom 12:1, 2) So much of spiritual truth has to be applied or we don’t own it. Our statements of belief can become lip service, not life application. Now… all this struggle has occurred in the final days of preparation for a week’s speaking engagement in Pennsylvania on the subject: “Dreams and Your Walk with the Lifegiver.” See the tension? I am teaching on mind activation, a conscious act, while recognizing the possibility of significant dreams during our sleep, our rest. Are these two issues compatible? Well trekker, I think they are and I wrote a bit about this last December, 2008. (Have you checked our website recently? The address is in the header of this and every newsletter.)

But I’ve come to an interesting and, I think, valid conclusion! Anything we do consciously or unconsciously must be placed within the context of God’s desire to communicate his love to us. And He is the initiator. For example, who initiates prayer? Well, God does, giving us the desire to reach up and out to Him! So we may commune with God both actively (engaging our minds) and passively (in our dreams and visions), the latter which sweep over and through us without any effort on our part.

Two Psalms have been helpful in sorting this out – Psalm 121 and Psalm 131. We are all a bit like David… both practical and earthbound, but also a heavenbound dreamer, a poet and songwriter. (Joseph in Genesis was another dreamer; the list is quite long in Scripture.) We have a practical “left brain” and a creative, imaginative “right brain”. God made us that way on purpose! It is the secret of His enabling communication with us.

Psalm 121 opens up the rest or “Sabbath side” of our life by saying in essence, “while we rest and sleep, God does not.” Note verse 3: “He will not let your foot slip… he who watches over Israel (and Israel means wrestler or struggler with God and goes back to Jacob’s renaming in Genesis 32), slumbers not nor sleeps.” In other words, God is at work, watching over us, regardless of our conscious state!

So why wouldn’t/couldn’t God communicate with us in our dreams and visions? Have you been one of us who has awakened abruptly in the middle of the night because of the vivid nature of a dream? God works through our minds even when our conscious state is one of sleep/rest because of His consuming passion to direct, lead and guide us into the paths of righteousness!

The imagery of Psalms is mind boggling. Psalm 131: “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child without mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” The mind at rest in God is powerful in its simplicity as God works His will through our conscious and subconscious states. Most of contemplative life for me is “things too wonderful for me”. They are outside my limited understanding and impossible for me to control. If I’m not careful, I can seek to fix anything, to figure out everything, applying the latest remedy or fad in “Christian” or worldly thinking. I can in my thinking easily put God in a box, instead of letting Him be the God of all comfort in all of my life. Waking or sleeping, He is my treasure, my vision!

Frankly, I am teaching on Romans 12:1, 2 in the Sunday school class because we need to struggle, to wrestle with some tough sayings of Jesus. Yet, the mind, as necessary and wonderful as it is, as relentless as it is in doing its job moment-by-moment, is quite limited in what it can do to minister to my spirit and soul. The intellect lays the foundation of belief and trust, but the adventure, the imagination, the journey of walking with God… what I truly desire, God provides for me often through the storm, in the struggle, not only via the mind, but seemingly in addition to it. Yes, it is indefinable, and begs for words to describe the rhythms of His amazing grace which shower upon me. But they are real!

Sometimes the intellect alone, therefore, may starve one’s soul. I recall years ago a well-known evangelist confessing to me so vividly that he was often going through the “motions”, but “his heart was as dry as the Sahara desert.” Are we not all starving to truly “know” God in ways the mind cannot grasp? Striving for the mystery of God! Searching for the “rest” in God, beyond any performance for Him! Seeking for “quiet” beyond the demands of having a quiet time!

Psalm 46:10 is so pertinent… “be still and know that I am God.” “Let go and let God” is the literal meaning of “be still”. What we “think” about God, our mental gymnastics, are not really God! They can only point us toward God. The practice of “rest”, “silence”, yes, even “sleep” (and dreams and unsolicited communication by God), can produce confidence and clarity not otherwise obtained by the conscious mind.

“Wash over my spirit forever I pray, in fathomless billows of love” is how a songwriter describes the inner quiet. So trekker, when our mind is not engaged, it may be a good thing. We need not “occupy ourselves with things too great and too marvelous”. And we need not apologize for not doing so. A mind at rest welcomes God! For sure, God is at work and He may even give us a meaningful dream now and then. He is the God of surprise, never lurking to grab us, but lingering with open arms to welcome us into His embrace, always!

Resting in the joy of Jesus, your trekker friend,

Jim Meredith