Mindfulness The Eternal Now

MINDFULNESS – THE ETERNAL NOW

I would like to talk about the practice of mindfulness today which is something practised by people of many belief systems. However I am starting with a Scripture that speaks about God’s mindfulness towards us, because that is where mindfulness originally came from . 
Hebrews 2:6 What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? (This speaks to all of us (mankind) and also Jesus (Son of Man)
The root word for mindful in that Scripture is mnaomai (the idea of fixture in the mind - a mental grasp). 

So how is Mindfulness to be applied in practice?
Mindfulness can be described as the practice of paying attention, with an intention, and in the present moment. 
People in our Western culture have been engaging in the practice of mindfulness for some years now. It is a discipline that helps people to stop anxious or distracting thoughts from coming into the mind, helping them to appreciate and pay attention to what is central to them in their here and now experiences and in the inner space of what is meaningful in their life. People use mindfulness as a tool for sharpening their focus of attention and efficiency in doing productive things or for engaging in leisure or creative skills, and also as a form of emotional therapy for staying calm in times of stress. It has generally become a psychological discipline that is useful for finding some order in a busy and agitated world. That is well and good and helpful but it does not reach the highest goal of conscious mindfulness that God has prepared for us. 
Our mindfulness of God does more than just help us to pay attention to the inner space of what is meaningful in our life, it puts us in touch with the source of all meaning in our life, God himself.

So we have seen that it was God who invented the practice of mindfulness and we can see that he is focussing his full attention upon us with an intention of seeing us becoming the person we were created to be from eternity, and he has the attention, the intention and the eternal now, his present moment. And he wants us to get to know him and also to know that we are known by him, and can communicate with him at a level of close and intimate relationship – so it is a two way thing -  God starts the process of mindfulness towards us and invites us to respond. And right there begins a divine process of inner wholeness and transformation. (Romans 12:2 -  being transformed by the renewing of the mind). So What becomes transformed? – it is more than just behaviour - it is the consciousness of who we really are in union with God through Jesus. This consciousness is what captures the present moment and It fills the now with it’s fulness and focus. It is not simply hanging around in the background somewhere – It is front and centre in the mind. It becomes the eternal Now of our existence – always active. 

God wants us to know that we are known. God wants to help us locate that known self within himself in us – that is our inner source of power and love- the treasure in the earthen vessel. That is the wellspring, the fountain of living water. We can’t find it on our own, we are taken there by the Holy Spirit. 
John 16:14 he takes of what Jesus has said and of who Jesus is and reveals it to us. 
He takes us on this journey of mindful focus and intention.
The Holy Spirit hears the cry of our heart to the Father which says;
I want to know someone who really knows me and can help me find who I really am and who understands how I feel so that I can be who I really should be. That is powerful – and that is why David exclaimed ‘What IS man that you are mindful of him – are you that interested and focussed?

Our life (as part of the human race, created to be part of God’s family) is about knowing God and becoming KNOWN! – Known of God; 
Galatians 4.9. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world
(how can you lose that focus and get bound up in the darkness etc of the world)

Being really heard is being really known
When a person really feels heard they are tremendously grateful. They feel like saying – ‘how wonderful to know that someone is beginning to understand what it is like to be me’ 
Can you imagine God feeling like this about us? 
God says; ‘how wonderful to know that someone is beginning to understand what it is like to know me and to be KNOWN by me’ 

This is how we feel when we understand that God is always being mindful of us and that we are known by him in all things.
Can you imagine that God is hearing you and that he understands what it feels like to be you? 
That is the work of the Holy Spirit who knew what it felt like to be Jesus as a human being just as Holy Spirit knows us as a person in everything that we feel and understand.
He hears the outpouring of our own inner conflicts, our self-defeating attitudes, and our harmful or careless relational conduct towards others.
We have to know we are being heard without being judged, condemned, rejected or even evaluated for performance. This is because we are serious about knowing God.
When we begin to understand this and believe this that we are known like this we are entering into a healing dazzling light where our darkness can be conquered. 

Entering into this two way mindfulness with God is our wrestle with God and with ourselves. 
Just as Jacob wrestled with God who was in the form of an angel, at a time when he was wondering what his life had been all about, and where was it going in the future. Jacob had been cheating and competing all his life, even trying to beat his twin brother out of the womb, and he ended up cheating him out of his patriarchal inheritance, and he had cheated his father in law out of the best of his cattle. But now he was heading for an encounter with his brother Esau who was on his way to meet up with him – and he was very very worried. Jacob engaged in that wrestle with God that God had set up and this wrestle was the time set for Jacob to come to terms with himself and who he was and to come to terms with God – and he said; ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me’, we enter into the same kind of wrestle with the same kind of feelings and with a heart of saying ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me’. I want to know who you know I am.
Jacob was given another name by God after that wrestle. It was Israel. It means ‘you have prevailed with God’ – that means he stayed the distance and endured and hung on to God no matter what is cost him. It was an eternal Now moment for Jacob’s destiny. That is the story of inner transformation because in this encounter he actually prevailed against himself in his own inner being. He was touched by God on his thigh and his hip was put out of joint in the wrestle, and from then on he walked with a limp. That was the outward sign of his newfound vulnerability and humility. He was a changed man. He was known of God and he knew himself.

The word for mindful  (Mnaomai)in the Scripture comes from the same root word as ‘abiding’ -(meno).
Meno - to stay (in a given place, state of expectancy): — abide, continue, to be present,

That is what it means to abide in Him.

Jesus said to his disciples and to us;
John 15:4 Abide in me, and I will abide in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you abide in me.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me (are ever being mindful of me), and I in them (ever being mindful of them), will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

So this abiding, or mindfulness, is always a present moment experience. You cannot be present yesterday, or tomorrow – only now – the eternal Now. Mutual mindfulness between God and us is our eternal destiny. Or does God want us to live eternally in a chaotic conflicted life here on earth? It is a creation at war with itself when you see the destructive storms, earthquakes, animals killing each other, and killing people, and people killing people and bacteria and virus destroying populations. This will not be the case in eternity – no more sorrow no more tears no more death. BUT Jesus said that in this world we would have tribulation, pain, suffering, conflict, but he said ‘be of good cheer, let a supernatural joy fill your life in the midst of all these things – I have overcome the world. That is what it means – That is the outworking of our two way mindfulness with God in the here and now – that is salvation – The Bible says we are ‘being saved’ and ‘Now is the day of salvation’ – even though Jesus did the saving two thousand years go – our faith appropriates NOW as a conscious reality.
We can arrive at a place of faith where we can say that no matter what important or momentous things are happening I my life, the biggest thing that is REALLY happening is that God is mindful of me!

It is difficult to take our attention off ourselves and our struggles and practice our two way mindfulness and abiding with God.
There are some things that you will find good to be mindful of at the start of each day. 

Remember that God is still the same. He never changes, even if yesterday everything around you changed. His mindfulness means he cannot forget you – your name is written upon the palm of his hand.
Remember that his love for you is an everlasting love, and the reason you exist is because he wants to share his love with you today. 
Remember that he can do all things, and that nothing is impossible for him; who created you, and the Universe, just for you. 
Remember that he only wants the best for you, and he will surprise you with his goodness. 
Tell him you will not worry or be anxious today, for there is no need for that – He will make life work out for you if you let him.
Remember ALL this only becomes a reality when your mindfulness of faith is operating. Outside of that is the darkness of a shadowy world where chaos and anxiety take over the mind. 

we can actually hear God saying this to us, ALWAYS NOW, and we can really listen, and become mindful about how God truly feels about us. When we become willing to make mindfulness of God the centre of our lives we can finally find peace within ourself. There is a peaceful harmony in being a whole person. We also find hidden aspects of self that we have denied to our awareness, and each such discovery of our shadowy self can give us uneasy and anxious moments. But we can come to terms humbly and honestly with these shortcomings knowing we are not rejected but accepted. We live like Jacob had to live with his limp humble but prevailing into a revised and changing picture of self, a challenging, sometimes disturbing, but exciting and never- ending adventure in this present life.

Consider these aspects of God’s mindfulness towards us in the Scriptures

Hebrews 2:6 What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?

Hebrews 13:8 ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.’

Psalm139:17 How precious are your thoughts (rêa – intentions, purposes) towards me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

Isaiah 49:16 Behold, I have written  your name on the palms of my hands;

Jeremiah 29:11 ‘For I know the thoughts I have towards you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.’

Jeremiah 31:3 ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you to me.’

Luke 18:37 ‘There are things that are impossible for men, but with God nothing is impossible’

Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.

Exodus 33:14 My presence will go with you and I will give you rest, for you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name.

Philippians 4:6 ‘Do not be anxious for anything, but talk to me about what your needs are, with hope and thanksgiving in your heart.’