LISTENING TO YOUR DREAMS

If you don't believe the world is talking to you, you won't notice a thing.

And if you don't believe that your dreams have something to say to you, you won't bother to try to remember them, much less analyze them.

For most people this is the biggest stumbling block. And it's not an easy one to get around.

Just hearing that you should pay attention to dreams and synchronicity is not enough.

You have to actually experience that they are meaningful before you can know for yourself that the unconscious is really and truly seeking dialogue with you, and that God is behind the dialogue.

by Joyce Rockwood Hudson
from "Inside the Soul"

If God is a non-interfering, loving God,what are we doing when we pray for certain results?

For example, that a friend's cancer be healed, that one's marriage be saved, that children in some areas of the world be saved from starvation, that wars end?

... does prayer ultimately change things in others or other places?

I don't believe that our prayer changes God's mind or improves God's disposition.

God will do what God will do.

Our basic prayer is: God, be God. Be the God you have shown yourself to be.

• Would God be something else if we didn't pray? No.
• Would God hate if we didn't beg God to love? No.
• Would God ignore a cancer or marriage unless we remembered to pray and did so fervently? No.

It is God's nature to love, to show mercy, to forgive, and to redeem. Our prayers don't modify God's nature.

What then, do our prayers do? ...

A reader's question, answered by Tom Ehrich
from "What Are You Asking?: June 2006"

"The Lord is near." What a gentle encouragement.

Much of the intention of the many prayer disciplines is to create in us a constant sense of God's presence.

Classical spirituality calls it "recollection"--the state of being constantly aware of God and responsive to God's presence.

Some use the word "mindfulness." A gentle reminder--"the Lord is near"--repeated over and over can help plant a mindful consciousness within us. Some people repeat the Jesus prayer or some other mantra for that purpose.

I love the way that phrase "the Lord is near" is nestled within Paul's beautiful hymn in Philippians 4.

And then, every once in a while, when I'm not having to concentrate, I'm going to try to repeat by heart Paul's beautiful words "Rejoice in the Lord always..."

Doing little exercises like that is a way to create a constant sense of God's presence, a state of mindfulness.

by Lowell Grisham
from "Signposts Daily Devotions: June 25, 2006"

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