by Rev. Gina Johnson
I have a best friend, who I consider to be my spiritual partner, we get into a lot of conversations around the practice of presence, and we talk about how we can set up certain places to practice presence, but eventually, we need to learn to practice presence in all areas of our life. We talked about how, for some people, that comes through maybe meditation, reading the word, but for other people, it comes in forms of artistry, that if you see someone painting a picture, and they become one with the canvas and the tools that they're using, they're just practicing that beautiful presence. For some of you, it may be gardening, or maybe it's hunting, or maybe it's woodworking, or maybe it's playing the violin. When a guest musician played recently at a worship service, I thought, you know, maybe she's worried about missing a note, maybe she's worried about her timing, but I didn't feel that.
I felt her presence, and I feel that when we practice presence in all we do with our loved ones, with strangers, with our employer or employees, with our spouses, with our best friends, when we practice presence, that's when the spirit is most amplified and is most released for those around. So in that moment, her gift of presence drew me in.
When my children, I don't know about all of them, that's what happens when you have six, you can't truly remember who did certain things, but many of them would have this great practice of getting hurt. Now that wasn't their practice. You might have thought so on certain days. You'd hear the scream or the cry, you'd hear that noise, and whether you were in the room and jumped up to see what happened or ran into the room from somewhere else, you would go there, and the first things out of my mouth are, “Are you okay, what happened?”
A little side note, I remember when I used to hurt myself and someone would say, are you okay, in my mind, I'm like, “Are you freaking kidding me right now? If I was okay, would I be laying on the ground holding my foot in agony?” I love that, you know, someone hurts themselves, and we’re like, “Hey, are you okay?” They're on the ground and say something like, “Yeah, I'm okay.” I mean, come on, what is going on there, right?
And so my kids would do it even better. I'd come in, you know, and we'd get past that. Then in their crying and retelling of what happened, they would say, “Well, let me show you what happened.” I remember I would get entranced by this replay of what happened, and then it would dawn on me, “No, no, no, sit down. What are you doing? Why are you about to reenact, play by play, how you hurt yourself?” It’s like, someone comes running in and says, “Yeah, I just hit my thumb with this hammer, but let me show you how I did that, so you can get the full feel of it.” What is that?
It reminded me of that idea of, it hurts when we hit ourselves, but by golly, we do it again, and again, and again. It took me a while to actually be able to stop my child and say, “No, no, no, don't show me, baby. You just hurt yourself. Why do you want to show me how that happened? Let's tend to feeling better.”
That brings me to our scripture passage today, from Romans 7: 15-20. Paul writes:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Have you ever felt like Paul? Have you ever woke up one morning and said, you know what, I'm going to have a full 24 hours of no complaining. I am not going to complain, instead I'm going to shift my perspective and say, “Ah, I start to hear complaining around me and I can't diffuse it quickly, then I am going to excuse myself calmly and quietly and not think any further about the complaining that I just heard.” How many times do we say, “That's the kind of day I'm going to have, no negatives, no down moments, no gossip, no complaining, no getting dragged into stories that aren't serving me.”?
And how many of us make it past getting out the front door before we've given in to one of those things? That right there is what Paul is talking about. It's what we get so caught up in that takes us off the path that serves us most, that takes us off the path of being the fullness of who we are, which is faithful, which is loving, which is grace filled, which is generous, which is compassionate, which is abundant spiritual beings. But in this sandbox that I like to call life, that educational sandbox, we tend to forget who we are and we give in to doing those things. I want to have a beautiful day enjoying creation, enjoying relationships, enjoying ministry, but instead I'm going to worry about my finances, instead every place that I see a gap or where I'm falling short in myself, I'm going to dwell on it and beat myself up and create more and more separation. I'm just like Paul. “Gosh, why do I do that, that's not what I want to do, I want to live a day of gratitude, I want to live a day of love and service, I want to live a day of teaching and learning.” So how, how do we do that?
See Paul is describing this universal human challenge, it's this conflict that we face between following our desire to seek and to know and to love and giving in to our tendency to dwell in the world. There's that Bible verse we've all heard many times that we are in the world, not of the world, but as we're moving through that old programming sets in. See in the human condition we have been programmed and inundated from the moment we were born, and as we get older there's just even more belief systems and structures and ideas that come in, and not that these things aren't great and beautiful and with purpose, but sometimes everything just gets so cloudy, everything gets so messy.
Who's right? Who's wrong? How am I supposed to live? Do I need to be a certain way to make it into heaven? How can the kingdom really be within me? How can I be a child of God when I'm getting angry every other second? How can I be created in his image when I keep falling short of everything I'm trying to do? What do you mean I'm not my body when I get out of bed with aches and pains no matter what I do?
You see in this world it's so easy to lock into the programming that we are governed by in our situations, believing that our thoughts and our emotions and our actions have been shaped by these outside entities will be forever that way, but that's not the case. When we look at Jesus we see a perfect example of trusting in God. We see a perfect example of following the guidance of the Spirit. By his example we can learn to overcome that inner conflict. We can learn that there is no such thing as separation from God and when things creep up in our life that start to pull us towards those things we don't want to do, we can pause. We can pause and we can turn inward and we can figure out what is the best path to move forward in the fullness of our alignment with God versus separation.
I just got back from some time away and my time away was a nice mix. I had some time that I'm going to call working, and I had some time that I'm going to call training and I had some time that I'm going to call being. I think all of us, whether you're retired or not, experience all three of those places. So in the time that I was working, I was working with my partner and we were doing some spiritual counseling guidance with a dear friend of ours and that part was really easy to be present in. I knew what I was supposed to be doing there. I was holding space for someone and just the set and setting of everything was beautiful for the work of walking alongside someone in their spiritual unfoldment. I believe that some of you get up for your daily work, whatever it may be and it's like effortless. You do it all the time. You feel confident in it. There's not a lot of areas to lack presence because it's your well-oiled machine. This is your work.
Then there was the area of training. Now training, you know, it's that time to be a student. I got to spend time with some beautiful, wonderful mentors who were teaching me how to practice being present, seeking consciousness, understanding who I am, the work that I'm doing and how that work is going to move forward in ministry, in my family and beyond and for the most part, I was able to be present there. I was able to sit and see, “Ah, okay, this is how I need to do this going forward. These are the places I need to continue to study. Here's some of the things I need to quit doing and release so I can come further into the alignment of who I am and I can do my roles with confidence and with love and with perseverance as things arise.”
So that part was great but there were also moments in that time of training, in that time of learning, where something would rise up, where I felt like I was falling short, where I felt like I was never going to get it, where I looked at all the things in front of me and thought, “Gosh, based on this situation, how is this ever going to change?” And the minute I allowed those things in my classroom, I missed the boat. The minute I allowed those things to be my focus, I was no longer present, I was no longer the student receiving, instead I was Gina beating on Gina. “Oh, Gina, it's so great to recognize these things and to receive these things but have you seen your track record, I don't think so.”
Do you ever have that, where you learn something new, where you experience something new and you say, “Man, I'm going to take this and I'm going to apply it to my life and I'm going to become an even better version of me because that's who you are,” but then there's a voice that creeps up and says, “Are you really going to do that? What makes this time different? You know, you're learning these practices but are you ever going to implement them or is that just something you're going to talk about?”
I have what I call “conference fear.” You go to a conference. You learn a lot. You enjoy the energy and then you come back home and you don't implement or take action on a single thing. I had a little bit of that too sitting there. Am I really going to use all this stuff? Is this really going to happen? Are God's promises and God's plans really true? How much of this is all in my head? It's a messy place to be, but again, the lesson was when I was present, when I recognized that I am in the world, not of the world, when I recognized that as long as I am seeking what the spirit has for me, I don't have to be in that separation.
So the third part of my trip, what I would call the most challenging part, would be the being because when you're serving someone else, it's easy to be present and caught up in that and when you're learning, even if you do get pulled away, usually something being taught to you will pull you back in, but when your task is just to be, that is challenging. How many of you can confidently raise your hand and say, “You know what, I can still and quiet my mind for five minutes a day and not let anything intrude except for the message that I am a child of God, created in his image, a gift of love to the world.”? Who can even do that for five minutes?
I think some of you can. I think some of you can do it for a lot longer than five minutes, but I'll have to tell you, it takes me five minutes just to give myself permission. It takes me sometimes 10 minutes just to quiet my head, along with my mouth and along with my heart, because if it's not my thoughts, it's my feelings and emotions or it's just my mouth wanting to talk about everything going on inside. It's like, “Shh, just be still, Gina,” and that's the thing that Jesus was teaching us, that Paul is trying to remind us of, to get in the practice of being still. You guys know that scripture, “Be still and know that I am God,” and if you are directly from God, an extension of Christ, an extension of our source and creator, when he says be still and know that I am God, be still and know that you are mine and I am yours, we are the I Am together.
It was in those spaces of being where I had the greatest moments of my time away, because I wasn't worried about my children. I wasn't worried about Travis. I wasn't worried about bills or whether or not I'm a great minister. I didn't think about how fast the church is going to grow or how much laundry is going to be back at home. I just sat there in the stillness and the silence of recognizing that we have a sovereign faithful God who has given us one very important and simple message, and that is to be still and know that I am God. We don't need to do anything but claim what is rightfully ours and then share it with absolutely everyone we encounter.
Paul says I do not understand what I do for what I want to do, I do not do. How many times do we find ourselves in that place? And all we have to do is look at Jesus and step back into that stillness that he demonstrated for us. We need to release our thoughts and our patterns of separation as if we are anything less than.
Get rid of those thoughts that say you're not enough, you can't do it, are you kidding yourself? And start embracing those thoughts that say you are a child of God, you are the salt and light of the world, you are more than conquerors, there is no condemnation. And the minute we can embrace that, we can live a life that not only honors God with our actions, but it honors God because we are recognizing the fullness of who we are. When we open ourselves to the teachings of Jesus, when we open ourselves to the things that he modeled, the ways that he showed us, and just being still in that great place of knowing and trusting, surrendering and allowing, we can then experience freedom from that inner conflict that Paul was describing.
I'm going to close with a story that hopefully can help you all in grabbing a hold of this concept that in the stillness, we get recharged. And in the stillness, we find the spirit that helps guide us. Then it's up to us to make the right choices and to use the power we've been given.
I'm going to tell you all two animal stories. There is a young man who is just struggling because he's wrestling with doing the things that he knows he should do versus the things that he doesn't want to do and he keeps doing. And he feels there's this inner battle of consciousness and he goes and he sees the village master and he speaks to him and he says, “What do I need to do here?” And the master tells him, and I'm paraphrasing this, to think of it as two wolves. One wolf is calm, is a representation of peace and quiet, stillness and harmony. The other wolf is just frantic and riled up and always, always wanting to go out and run and chase and hunt and just can't sit still. And he says, the wolf or the inner voice that you want to persevere, that you want to take charge, is going to be the one that you feed more.
In moments of busyness, if we pile busyness on top of busyness and doubt on top of doubt and anger on top of inadequacy, we are feeding that wolf that never rests, that wolf that wants to go out and seek and destroy and just keep on the go all the time. But if we feed the reality of who we are as children of God, the divine gifts we have, the divine beings that we are, then we feed that stillness.
The other story that I want to tell you is about a man who day after day would try and walk his two dogs. And boy, he felt some days like those dogs were walking him. Actually, he felt that way most days and he was not sure what to do anymore. So he goes and he speaks to his neighbor and he says, “You are walking your dogs very peacefully all the time. But when I walk my dogs, they just want to run and pull me. And it's just very small moments where they allow me to walk in peace.” And the neighbor said, “Next time you want to go for a walk, call me and I will join you.” So the next time he goes to go for a walk, he starts to walk the dogs. And once again, they're about to pull him and his neighbor reaches over and grabs the leash with him. And he says, “I'm here with you. Let me help you walk these dogs. Let me help show you and guide you on how you can walk your dogs and not allow them to walk you.” That man is a representation of the Spirit, of that inner guidance, of that inner consciousness. We don't have to do this alone.
When we find ourselves facing what Paul faced, we don't have to throw our arms up or put our heads down in defeat. We can turn inward. We can feed the wolf of choice and we can recognize that the Spirit's power within us is just like a neighbor who comes along and says, let me help you. Let me walk alongside of you. Let me show you an easier way. And then you'll be able to show that easier way to others, primarily in the demonstration of your own stillness.
I just want to remind you again that when we choose to live in that idea that I'm going to continue to do what I don't want to do, I'm evil and I'm wretched and gosh, how can I escape this? We continue to give into that ideal of separation. But when we choose to recognize the fullness of who we are, when we choose to embrace the teachings of Jesus, when we choose to walk confident in knowing that we are created in God's image, that absolutely everything we need is within us, we can see it most clearly when we stop and be still and know that God is God.
Please pray with me.
We are so blessed. We are so blessed, God, to know that there is nothing on this earth, there is nothing in all of creation that can keep us from you. May we acknowledge that despite whatever situations are around us, we are mightier.
Through your love, through Jesus, we know the way, we know the truth. Spirit, help us to embrace the fullness of who we are. Help us to embrace the vastness of all that has been given to us and help us to live our lives in harmony and balance with complete allowance of who we are to go before us.
Thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. It's in the beautiful name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen.
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