Hello friends,
Welcome to Christian meditation with me Anita Mathias.
Let's begin to detach from our distracting world,
To retreat within ourselves and to be alone with our breath and with the God who gave us breath,
Who loves us,
Who comes to us in calm or in storm,
Walking on the waters.
Let's begin to deepen our breath,
A quick way of calming down,
Eventually slow easy breathing when we are stressed or agitated will become a habit which we'll do without even realizing that we are doing it.
Close your eyes,
Sit straight or cross-legged if that's comfortable and begin to breathe.
Exhale fully to the count of five,
Inhale deeply to the count of five,
Breathe out fully,
Breathe in deeply.
If you feel tension in your shoulders,
Raise them to your ears and slowly roll them clockwise and anti-clockwise.
Stretch your arms upwards,
Clasp your right wrist with your left hand and bend towards your left and then towards your right,
Breathe.
Ball up your hands and your toes then wriggle them outwards,
Breathe.
Now tense your whole body as tightly as you can and then relax it.
Let's breathe and let's repeat the tense relax cycle once more.
Tense your body,
Tight,
Relax it,
Breathe.
In a vision the Prophet Ezekiel sees a valley full of dead bones and the Spirit commands him to say,
Dry bones hear the word of the Lord.
This is what the Sovereign Lord says,
I will make breath enter you and you will come alive.
Come breath from the four winds and breathe into these dead that they may live.
And breath entered them and they came alive.
Then the Spirit said,
Son of man,
These bones are the people of Israel.
They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone.
Therefore say to them,
The Sovereign Lord says,
I will put my spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your own land.
And this is what the God of kindness says to us today,
Come alive.
We have hearts of gold for God made them but they might also have some dead black cells shriveled from the hammer blows of this life and the damage we've done to our own hearts by over focusing on non life-giving things like excessive ambition driven work or making more money than we need or bitter angry thoughts.
When the Spirit blows through our hearts like a mighty wind working the miracle of forgiveness those dead cells in our hearts and spirits begin to come alive.
Come Holy Spirit help us come alive.
The parable of the unmerciful servant.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,
Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
Up to seven times?
Jesus answered,
I tell you not seven times but seventy-seven times.
Therefore Jesus says,
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
As he began the settlement a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.
Since he was not able to pay the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
The servant fell on his knees before him be patient with me he begged and I will pay back everything.
The servant's master took pity on him cancelled the debt and let him go but when that servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred pieces of silver he grabbed him and began to choke him.
Pay back what you owe me he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him be patient with me and I will pay you back but he refused instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay his debt.
When the other servants saw what happened they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in.
You wicked servant he said I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?
In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed and Jesus concluded this is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
But how do we find the freedom of forgiveness?
We can be tortured for months,
Years,
Decades by searing memories of past abuses,
Injuries and injustices.
Oh to find the freedom and lightness of forgiveness.
But how do we command the hurricane of our emotions to be still?
How do we forgive?
When tormenting memories surface our cortisol,
Adrenaline,
Blood pressure and heart rate all rise.
We first need to calm this neurochemical and physiological storm.
It's good to literally go on a walk with Jesus honestly naming our emotions.
Outrage,
Shock,
Rage,
Hurt pride,
Hurt feelings,
Grief,
Incredulity and the longing for justice for feelings buried alive never die.
Then in a process called the healing of memories mentally visualize the painful scene that still upsets you.
Seeing Christ himself there,
His eyes brimming with compassion,
Ask Christ to heal the sting,
To draw the poison from these memories of experiences which have injured your mind,
Spirit,
Character and assessment of yourself.
We are caterpillars in a ring of fire as Martin Luther wrote,
Unable to rescue ourselves.
We need help from above.
Accept what happened.
What happened,
Happened.
Then as the Apostle Paul advises,
Give thanks in everything but not for everything.
Give thanks in everything because God can bring good out of the swindle and the injustice.
Ask him to creatively bring magic and beauty from the ashes.
If like the persistent widow Jesus used as an example you want to pray for justice,
That the swindler and the abusers characters are revealed so many are protected,
Then do so.
But that is a double-edged prayer.
First purify your own life and now just forgive.
Perhaps say aloud,
I forgive you for.
.
.
And you are then setting a captive free.
Yourself come alive,
Be free.
And when memories of deep injuries arise,
Say no,
No,
Not going there.
Stop repeating the devastating story to yourself or anyone else.
Don't waste your time and emotional energy nor let yourself be overcome by anger at someone else's evil actions.
Don't let the past poison your beautiful present.
Refuse to allow re-injury.
Deliberately think instead of things noble,
Lovely,
Admirable,
Excellent and praiseworthy.
So keep trying in obedience to forgive,
To let go of your anger.
Try until you suddenly realize that you have indeed forgiven and can now remember past events without agitation.
Oh hold our hand Jesus.
Amen.
