Praying For Self

The greatest gift Christianity gave to me was the approval to pray for myself…”

As a member of a “blended” church—strongly eastern, with a smattering of Christian ideology, prayer was taught to me in a universal way, which is taught in religions that practice pantheism. Webster defines pantheism as a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe and the worship of all gods of different creeds, cults, or peoples indifferently.

Our prayers in this church (which still has a worldwide base) were directed “outward” towards the universal in general. Think of the planet covered by a blanket and if part of the blanket is torn, the entire fabric is compromised. Prayer was explained as an energy force that we could project towards the world crises and that we could actually control. We were to believe we were divine beings, a bubble in God’s ultimate sea. We were led to believe that we could create an energy force that would heal what ailed the world without having to leave our meditation cushions. As fantastic as that might sound, think of it in terms of global warming, our pollution is melting the ice caps. Everything we do, even on an individual bases affects some other part of the world, and that was their theory on prayer.

They believed their Guru was able to project this healing energy:

“Each morning in deep meditation he invoked God’s blessings on all who had requested help, and sent them healing energy through performance of a simple but highly effective technique. As time went on (omitted) asked all of the monks and nuns of (omitted) to join him in this endeavor to serve the world through prayer.”

Eventually his congregation was taught this method, and I myself led this technique in what they called a prayer circle every Thursday night at a local temple.

When you pray in this manner, you disassociate with self, as you are throwing off the energy and imagining it going to wherever you think it needs to go. Imagine if someone you love dies of cancer; you’ll blame yourself for not throwing enough energy their way.

We were told that asking God for anything personal was “begging,” and we were not to be beggars before God. Imagine coming to our Lord and thinking that petitioning him is wrong. Imagine the image of oneself as a beggar. Though I meditated and loved God, I only approached Him as a great universal energy, a cosmic force to experience in deep meditation, not a loving, caring, embracing Father. We were to only consider the needs of others—to “be aware beyond self,” and never to reflect on the needs of our own; otherwise we were succumbing to ego. Nor were we to have “predetermined expectations from God.”

Jesus says we are to expect answers! “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:23.

When one of Jesus’ disciples asked him how to pray, he didn’t give them techniques of meditation, he said: “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

“And he said unto them, When ye pray, say,

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. KJV 11:1 – 4

We praise God for his glory and his kingdom is now. We ask for our personal needs, to forgive our short comings and forgive others. Keep us from sin and from evil. It’s so beautiful in its simplicity!

The greatest gift Christianity gave to me was the approval to pray for myself, but it was extremely hard—and I still have to remind myself that God wants me to pray for myself.

“Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Matt 7:7 NIV

I would not have believed this passage before, but I’ve seen many prayers answers this past year through prayer.

The religions of the world teach many ways to pray, but there is only one true way. The Bible tells us how to pray, but if we listen to men (guru’s, teachers, theologians or pastors gone astray) on how to pray, we’ll be tangled in disciplines without having a personal experience with God. My prayer life prior to accepting Christ was a burden, so difficult that most nights I went to bed without even attempting it!

I’m going to explain it to you in some detail here so you can remain vigilant in your churches. Someone might explain it as a way to deepen your knowledge of God, and use phrases like Christian meditation or Christian Yoga. Always refer to the Bible about prayer, never the ways of man, no matter how educated or well connected.

Prior to prayer you were to practice a series of Yoga “energizing” exercises. They were relatively easy to do, but took between 20 – and 30 minutes. After this, you sat down to mediate. Usually this included chanting for another 20 minutes. Next you practiced 3 different series of “yoga” techniques. The first was a breathing exercise that used a repetitive phrase called Hong-Sau. You were to mentally say the first word as you breathed in, and second word as you breathed out, all the while paying close attention to your breathing. After about a ½ hour of this, you would switch to another technique, called The Om Technique. This one involved closing your ears and eyes with your fingers. To make this easier they sold a special bar you used to hold your elbows. You were to listen for the OM vibration and look for the “third eye.” They taught us this was the “comforter” taught in the Bible, or their idea of the Holy Spirit.

The last technique was their highest and took a year of lessons and a special secret initiation. It was called Kriya Yoga (you can Google this for more information), and this was a technique where you visualized energy in your spine while using a breathing method to “draw” it around the spine, starting from the base (coccyx) to the base of your brain (medulla oblongata). Each revolution was one Kriya and the amount of them depended upon how far along you were. They start you at 12 and increase you by 12, but not without permission from a monk certified to increase them. He would watch and listen to see how well you were practicing Kriya before allowing you to do more.

After doing 24 to 120 Kriya’s, each taking about one minute to perform, you would then “sit in the silence” and feel God. All of this took about two hours, but I would manage to cram this into one hour. You were instructed to do this at least twice a day, in the morning and at night.

If you think it’s hard to find 20 minutes to pray to God, imagine having to go through those hoops to talk to him, and then not be able to really ask him for anything, just “feel his presence.” What does Jesus say about such prayers?

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered only by repeating their words again and again.” Matthew 6:7 (NLT)

After I left that church, it took me years to attempt to pray, and I had no idea what kind of “religion” I should try. I started walking every morning and praying: “Dear God, restore my faith in you and define that faith and belief.” That’s a far cry from the kind of “praying” I was doing before, and it felt so weak that I didn’t expect God to really answer.

God answered that prayer in a mighty way, and someday I hope to use that testimony as something very powerful I can share. For now, I’ll say that what he did—the way he did it—though painful, led my husband and me to the Jesus. But my prayer life continues to be a struggle, which prompted me to write this article. If you or anyone you know practices techniques of prayer, I hope this message will release you from that bondage.

God commands that we pray. “…pray continually” 1 Thess 5:17 NIV

All through the Bible you see men praying to God for help on personal matters.

Abraham – for a son. Gen 15:1-6
Cornelius – for enlightenment. Acts 10:2-30
Elijah – for triumph over Baal. 1 King 19-4
Gideon – For proof of his call. Judges 6:36-40
Hannah – for a son. 1 Sam. 1:10-27
Isaac – for children. Gen 25:21-24
Jabez – for prosperity 1 Chr 4-10
Jonah – for deliverance from the whale. Jonah 2:1-9
Jesus – for his enemies on the cross. Luke 23:34

I want to leave you with a warning. Eastern philosophies and techniques are present in American Christen churches as of 2007. We must be vigilant about “blending philosophies” into Christianity. Tolerance for fellow humans has nothing to do with standing firm in Biblical truth.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. Romans 8:26-27 NIV

Reveal Thyself

In today’s society there are many reasons why people don’t accept the God of the Bible. The list is long and varied, but I want to talk about two reasons that used to come to my mind. They might sound modern, but they’re as old as 13 century BC.

They don’t believe in the God of the Bible because they’ve never seen him and have no assurance he’s real. They might squabble that without seeing this Christian God, or at the very least finding him in a test tube, he can’t exist, at least not exclusively.

They might believe in a divine intelligence but not that the Bible is the final word on the subject. After all, what about all the other God’s and spiritual writings? And they might argue that if seeing God would solve the problem of belief, why doesn’t this Christian God reveal himself? Wouldn’t it be easier to find salvation if God just got a reality TV show?

People who ask these questions don’t know that God has made himself known to people before, and his revealing himself didn’t bring them any closer. They still rejected him and rebelled against him.

Let’s look at one of these people and see what went wrong.

Aaron was the older brother of Moses, and the first high priest. Aaron was a good communicator, (Exod. 4:14) savvy and probably good looking, a real show man, ready to impress the Pharaoh with a song and a dance and a rod that turned into a serpent. God bestowed on him some pretty miraculous powers to wow the crowds and orchestrate a few plagues. You can’t get any tighter with God than Aaron. God talked to him (Exod 4:27), God to man. It wasn’t a question for Aaron if God existed. That question is out of the way for Aaron.

But even though Aaron knew God personally, had spoken to him and knew he had a plan for his people, Aaron still wavered under society’s pressure to do their own God thing. While Moses was still in a meeting with God, the crowds grew rebellions (Exod 32:1). To keep everyone happy, Aaron crafted a golden calf, and not out of any gold. He had the people gather up golden earrings which were regarded with superstitious reverence. He then declared, “These are your God’s O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Exod 32:4) Bad enough he denied God his Glory, but he goes on to build a spectacular altar and throws them a rocking party. A real A List gathering.

While the hoot and hollering was going on, God was watching and listening. Our Homeland Security has nothing on God.

If we think that seeing and chatting with God is the answer to our believing—and how we believe, then we haven’t studied our Biblical history.

In our contemporary society we expect scientific answers to God and, or at least, exploration of other theologies. Yet most science is based on theory, not fact, including evolution, and Christians today are rebelling against the Christian God by caving to the mass of multicultural influences and seeking other pathways to God.

God is done with revealing himself to us. He’s given us his only son, Jesus, for salvation. A great many people think it is presumption for me to say I know that I’m saved—that I can only “hope for the best and will have to wait until I’m dead to know.” But Paul didn’t say to the jailer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and perhaps you will be saved, or you will have a good chance of being saved, or you may hope to be saved, no he said: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—” Acts 16:31

Up, Down, Left or Right – Which Way Is One Way?

“Heaven and Earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.” Matt 24.35

In July of 2006, when I was dunked into the ocean and baptized, accepting Jesus Christ as my savior, I believed I was saved and had eternal life. Though I didn’t feel different, I knew that feeling was not evidence or proof for me to trust. I was in the Kingdom. There was no instrument for ascertaining whether I had received salvation, no proper position, place or stage I needed to go next. It was all based on faith and belief. I was saved because Jesus died for me. I was to know I am saved because God says so in his Word: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13.

Hallelujah!

It sounded effortless in comparison to the “church of all religions,” I’d left five years prior to my conversation, where I had to attain super consciousness to know God, or as it was called, “Nivikalpa Samadhi.” In this state, you’re told you can see everything as one, you’re pure awareness and one with God—but you do the work. I had never attained Samadhi in 30 years, but I did, through meditative techniques, slip into intense peaceful states that lasted for a few hours. On a side note, I’d like to point out that being a Christian is not effortless all, but the most engaging and exciting way to live my life.

It’s been difficult to deconstruct eastern thought and make the switch to absolute faith in Jesus, and now I’m learning it might not have been necessary. In today’s diverse Christian world there’s a movement afoot called the Emerging Church which embraces some of the theology I’ve worked to uproot. This term is used to incorporate any new thoughts or technology into Christianity and can include, but not limited to, humanistic works, psychological study or mystical teachings. The irony is some of this thought isn’t really new, and that’s the point of this article. I can’t help but chomp at the bit over this stuff.

As a child of the 60’s I often say that our culture at the time led me into eastern religion, that and my lack of Christian training. Many people today have grown up in a similar manner, victims of their culture without knowledge of Christ. Most people have no theological background whatsoever, and since they’ve had no discourses about God and religions, or know their Bible, they can be sold on just about anything that’s cultural and disguised as Christianity.

There was no ambiguity about Christianity when I started to study and practice eastern religion. Christians knew their Bible! If I said the word “meditation,” they would become “alarmed.” I would have to explain to them that meditation was “prayer.” Are we not hearing this same explanation about “meditation” in Christian churches today? It’s now coined Christian meditation. I wouldn’t dare have mentioned “higher consciousness!”

Any practice of mysticisms was considered pagan, and meditation is a discipline used to achieve communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of the ultimate reality, the divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience.

Let me take a breath.

Okay, do you get it yet?

I’m just a nano pea here, but having come from a church of all religions, I can say with some authority that blending teachings leads to individual interpretation of scripture, to disciplines—or works, which can cause guilt when not practiced, which in turn can cause shame. Shame keeps man from God. Let’s go back to the Garden for that reference.

I’ve heard Christians wax fantastic about the lives of monks—their spiritual experiences being something we should study. I knew many monks and they were not so holy! They were a bunch of schizotypal, anemic, sexually repressed men. My second cousin was a monk and a pedophile to boot! Okay, so all monks are whack-jobs, but monks do not live in our realities and we should not be comparing our spiritual lives with theirs.

Here I am, a new Christian, looking around at mature Christians, wondering why this movement isn’t upsetting them more, and then I realized they’re not educated in other theologies or psychology and aren’t aware that some of the “new” ideas thrust upon the modern churches are not new at all—just regurgitated theologies and psychologies.

Sigh…and I thought it was hard to be a Raja Yogi.

Bottom line for now, I’m holding fast to scripture.

The New Standard Reference Bible was published in 1936, and was specifically written to help believers engage unbelievers, and to get them saved, and like today, they were also trying to fill their pews. But there’s nothing about humanistic, psychological, or Christian meditations in their method, in fact, it it’s quite simple. It doesn’t “bend” to the cultural changes of their times, nor offer new steps to God.

Here’s what it says. Reflect on these words and see what they mean to you and the direction of your church —

This Bible contains:

The mind of God, the sate of man, the way of salvation, doom of sinners and happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to directly you, food to support you and comfort to cheer you. It is the travelers map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilots compass, the soldier’s sword and the Christians charter. Here paradise is restored, heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, or good it’s design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth a paradise of glory, and a fiber of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be open at the judgment and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility. Rewards the greatest labor and condemns all who trifle with its holy contents.

This book unfolds Jehovah’s mind.

This Voice salutes in accents mind

This friend will all our need supply

This Fountain sends forth streams of joy

This mine affords us boundless wealth

This good physician gives us health

This sun renews and warms the soul

This sword both wounds and makes us whole

This letter shows our sins forgiven

This guide conducts us to the gate of heaven.

This Charter has been sealed with blood

This volume is the Word of God.

If you have received God’s gift (Jesus) you have God’s word for it that you have life. The life is in his Son. Believe this and you will know it. Confess Jesus as your Savior and you will have the witness of the Spirit.

The Trouble With Patience

This past week I had a good lesson in patience. I get a lot of chances at this lesson because I’m short on it. I have been both gifted and cursed to see a clear path to fixing a problem or an injustice and I think the rest of the world should just get on it and move along. I’ve prayed about the defective side of this gift, talked about it, pondered and fretted about my lack of patience for years.

I sought scripture. “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” Prov 19:11. Wisdom is a quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight. So does a man (or woman) need those qualities first to give him patience? That quote doesn’t help me. “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Ecclesiastes 7:8

Now this is something I can sink my teeth into. First, it makes sense. Let’s look at the characteristics of pride: a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc. That’s me. Lock, stock and barrel!

Okay where is this self debasing heading?

Let’s go back to November 21, 2007 to the beginning of my matter—the night I found out my email address that is linked to my blog and my website, and my puffed up sense of importance on the internet, was hijacked.

So, I get a call from a friend at 11:00 PM. Late night calls are never a good sign. She said her daughter and she both received emails from me asking for money, indicating I was in Africa ministering to AID victims.

I assured her it wasn’t me, then went to my computer and typed in my Gmail password. I must have typed it wrong. So I tried it again, nope, and again. Access denied. I tried to get Google to send my “new” password by emailing it to my secondary address. A hacker changed all my secret questions and my secondary email address and was emailing everyone I knew asking for cash.

I wish I could say that, being a good Christian, I calmly decided to take care of the problem, but instead I went into full-state boogie panic. Did I mention this was the night before Thanksgiving—a long four day weekend, and no doubt a longer one for the spectacular employee benefits at Google.

My nerves then exploded when I learned the hacker had also secured my other two emails, which because I linked them to Gmail is simple to access if one’s into my account. I immediately regained control of these emails, thank you Yahoo and Cox.net, but I was soon to learn that Google doesn’t have an immediate solution to hacked accounts, and doesn’t offer customers support beyond “forms” that you fill out and click to send—and these are difficult to find once you’re in their maze of help pages. To boot they want to know information that you can’t possibly remember—such as what day did you activate your account and what’s your activation code. Huh? Still, I thought my problem would be solved by the morning and the evil hacker would be stopped short and I’d have access to my account. Silly me.

Charged with: “God is in control,” told I my husband (in a calm voice) that “there was nothing I could do about the situation,” and I would just have to wait for Google to take care of the problem. Eventually they’d send me an email to regain my account. I knew when I said it that I didn’t mean a word of it and I could already feel my anger and sense of injustice percolating in my heart, and my plan was to start ranting and raving all over the internet on any board USA that had like complaints about Google. So, I did that, but didn’t feel any better. One poster over at Google Help Forums got so annoyed with me that he claimed Google would not help people with bad attitudes. Me? Why, I don’t have a bad attitude, I just expect Google to jump when I say how high! It’s ME after all! ME who could fix this problem if you’d just let me explain how to lock down accounts once you’re notified of a breach. ME who should have access right now, not tomorrow, of her account, even though (and this should not matter, I ranted), that I only write to my brother and he’s got my other email address, ME who has three hits a month on her blog and a half a dozen on her humdrum website. ME! ME! ME!

After five days and no resolution my shoulders were sagging.

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Job 6:11 NIV

By now, I was certain that Google was going to ban me, and sure enough, on day 6 my account was deleted. When I saw that my website was shut down with an ominous statement that it was “…disabled for violations of our Program Policies.” I went ballistic. ME? I’m a Christian! I don’t violate program policies!

Pride. Full blown.

There was no real reason for the panic or drama, other than I was certain this hacker now knew where I lived, where my children lived, where my cats lived, where my entire extended family lived, and could easily take over my identity as I had been busy doing genealogy for weeks and emailing (and not deleting) pictures and documents relevant to my life and family. Then, to add to worries, I thought he might kidnap me and want a ransom. Everyone I talked to assured me I was in no immediate danger, that these hackers just want money, and besides, we’d tracked him to Thailand through an IP address and it wasn’t likely he was coming to Mission Viejo, California anytime soon.

I took an ugly turn about day 7. I became fixated with “how” the hacker got my password. Forget, okay, that it was my mother’s maiden name and I post genealogy, okay…let’s move on, because by now I was convinced he was outside my house with a laptop zoning in on my wireless router!

I spent hours upon hours trying to find out how Google accounts were hacked. I read hacker boards, I typed into Google: “How do you hack into a Google account?” I combed through thousands of websites for answers, for someway to take back what I thought to be mine. I was obsessed.

“A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly.” Proverbs 14:29 NIV

I was starting to look like a fool, even to myself. It was just wanting my way and wanting it now, railing against a multibillion dollar corporation. I wasn’t “letting my light so shine before men that they may see my good works and glorify my Father which is in heaven,” Matt 5:16. Heck no, I was posting anonymously lest someone call me a Christian hypocrite!

I wasn’t trusting God would resolve my Google problem. I wasn’t sure God liked the Internet and hearkened it to the Tower of Babel. For 9 days I had no peace and a bad attitude, as I was certain Google had my name on their “do not resuscitate list,” and then, out of the blue on day 9 the Google email arrived. My account was restored, they were sorry for the inconvenience. Hurmph! I logged on, certain all was lost, but I was wrong. Not a missing letter, not a missing picture, not a missing comma from website or blog. All was well.

So, I sat down and ate some humble pie.

I’d completely lost focus on all my “prior” projects, and everything had been set aside so I could pound on Google’s iron doors. Though my account was restored, I began a series of rebellions against Google—I was packing up and leaving town. “I’d show them!” So I spent two days, a total of about 16 hours trying to learn a new Blog program. It’s running but difficult for me to manage compared to Google’s slick, “click and go” Blogger. Then I went back to my old POP email account, which I didn’t have a copy of and had to download and configure. Next the tedious importing of addresses and spending another three hours notifying my contacts that I was now back at my old address—an email program I never particularly liked since it can only be accessed at home.

Next, I spent an entire day revamping my old website, which meant finding it on a backup drive, relearning basic HTML and hunting for elements to bring it back to life, all of which had to be uploaded on to a server, which meant I needed an FTP program. That project took another hour to install and configure. I don’t have website software so I used Word and, well, it looks like it.

And finally, I ran around the Internet changing my passwords to encrypted gobbly-gook so no one could figure them out—including me, which means I’m having to hunt and peck through a series of passwords in a book that’s dog-eared and scratched and scribbled on every page and a painful and redundant hassle every time I want to log into any of the sites I’m registered.

After all the time wasted to get even with Google, after all my brain cells were fried, my husband mentioned kind of off handedly, “You asked God to restore your Google account, and he did, so why are you now leaving Google? You got what you prayed for.”

Patience.
Patience.
Patience.

Nope. Pride reared its nasty head, and I sneered, “I just couldn’t keep everything in one location if it’s not secure.” He shook his head in agreement, then said, “Well, look at it this way, you didn’t lose money or any content, so why not just create a better password and move forward?”

I went into a justice rant. Oh, I heard the whinnying. It was terrible.

Huge exhalation here…so, I failed patience, again. Though I was reading God’s word during the entire quagmire, I wasn’t following his divine instruction. “Trust in the Lord with all thy heart; and lean not unto thy own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5, 6 There’s no way I can, or ever will, understand how Google operates, and I need to get real that God does care about every aspect of my life including my Google account.

And then my husband said, “Remember what you used to tell me, the devil is in the details.” Oh, yea, I did say that! And then it hit me. I’d tied myself up with the details of self-righteousness and pride while trying to fix what I felt was wrong, not letting God do things his way, and let down my guard. The devil slipped right on in distracting me from my writing and various other concerns that are far more important than what I was doing. And that’s how it happens. God tells us to “put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Eph 6:11.

I can’t think of a better example than what happened last week. I’d not put on the armor thinking that it was reserved for the “big stuff in life.” But the devil works in the details—the little stuff! I lost sight of everything over nothing.

Sometimes I think I’ll never change, but that’s just what Satan wants, he wants us to beat ourselves up when we fail miserably. He wants us to think the Christian life is too hard. He wants us to give up when we backslide. Back to the mind of God: “And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” Isa 46.4

I’m back to Google. They may take their sweet time to secure their end users, but at the moment for this impatient soul, it’s the best bet going on the internet.

Jesus Psychology

What did Christians do before there were so many self-help books written on the subject of being…well, a Christian? A quick search of Amazon shows 23, 288 Christian books that will bring us closer to God. Not one is the Bible.

There is a large Christian reading audience who might not realize that some books published by Christian publishers and sold as Christian books, are more psychology than Christianity. And the writers have captive audiences. They hawk their books on the church summer tour schedule, standing in the place of a vacationing pastors.

Each year Americans purchase millions of self-help books, and though they’re not geared specifically toward the Christian audience, they often carry a generic spiritual message. Recently self-help has migrated successfully into Christianity with similar behaviorism messages, such as weight loss, how to be smarter, richer, and happier, only these themes lose the generic spiritual note for Biblical authority.

How does a discerning Christian know what to read, and are the writers qualified to interpret the Bible as a self-help guide?

1 Corinthians 3-4, Peter explains that each of us builds on the foundation of Christ, but we should be careful how we build. He also tells us that though you may have ten thousand teachers in Christ, you do not have many fathers. “Through the Good News I became your father in Christ Jesus.” The good news is the Bible.

Besides questioning if Christian self-help books over simplify physiological problems that perhaps a trained professional should evaluate, reading is way down the list for most people. Everyone’s life is jam packed these days. TV and the Internet vies for any down time. So I question churches pushing books on how to be a better Christian on Sunday’s rather than encouraging their congregation to spend free time reading the Bible, the first source of answers.

Is there an underlying message being delivered that the average Christian can’t interpret the Bible message and we must go “outside” the source and seek interpretation? There could be something dangerous about that, as it can give Christian writers celebrity status, taking the glory away from Christ.

All well said, and from an author who left the secular publishing to write for the Christian market. Still, my questions do force me to think about what I want to put into print and why I want to put it there and if the Holy Spirit is leading the way.

In 1 Corinthians Paul also talks about the gifts from the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, such as writing, and we can glorify God through this gift. The Spirit gives the person wisdom to speak with knowledge about God, and this can be written for other Christians. But are psychological concepts Biblical?

I recently went to a Sunday service that had a guest speaker who wrote a book about weight loss. This service had me thinking that psychological concepts can be oversimplified in a church setting, produce shame, worry and guilt, emotions many come to church already carrying as their painful yokes.

Self help should be a personal choice. Essentially we’ll never change unless we want to change. The first step is making the decision. Churches can offer courses to better our lives, and instill Biblical principles into those programs, but is Sunday the place to sell psychology mixed with Christianity?

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with reading books that will improve our lives, but a little awareness of what we’re reading, who wrote it and why we’re reading it, will keep us from watering down the Word with pop-psychology. God can answer all our questions without interpretation, and he can work through trained physiologists if we’re battling more serious problems such as depression or addictions. Books can often spark ideas, give encouragement, offer another way of understanding the Word, but they never do the work that we need to do on our own.

Remember the next time a guest speaker is tackling a humanistic topic on Sunday morning that he’s selling a book. If the Holy Spirit has anointed it, we’ll know through the heart. The most important place to find the truth about all of our life is in the Bible and prayer.

Read the Bible for Life and trust God will speak directly to us.

Kundalini – Fashion or Foe?

People Magazine has an article this week about a young actress who overcame an eating disorder and now draws her strength from Kundalini yoga. What concerned me most about this story is Kundalini is described as simply meditation and chanting. This lack of information is typical of our culture. We’re obsessed with eastern religion, and if you read much of my Blog you’ll see I’m quick to point out the erroneous mistake in promoting it so blatantly. Even more ironic is the message from this story is to go from one addiction to another. Yoga can be an addiction.

The writer of the People Magazine article didn’t consider a common thread that yoga has with addictions. Control. Eating disorders are about control, and so is yoga, especially Kundalini yoga, which is a meditative discipline. The addicts I knew who clung to yoga as their means of recovery, failed and are now dead. 30 years in an Eastern Church gives me some authority on the subject, and a bird’s eye view of the wreckage that a yogic life can leave behind.

Here’s what People Magazine didn’t tell you.

Kundalini yoga focuses on moving energy through the spine, or what yogi’s call the chakra system. How do they do that? They imagine moving energy around the chakras (spine), and this is done in conjunction with certain breathing exercises. It is done in repetitions, usually starting out with a small number and increasing as you practice.

There is an additional concern for addicts. Self-hypnosis is very addicting. It produces endorphins that mimic the same kind of high that cocaine can produce and stopping it suddenly can cause withdrawals. Practicing yoga can become an emotional obligation, something yogi’s might feel forced to practice, and when oneness is never found, depression can follow. Finally, the yogi self-hypnotizes isolates and disconnects from their world in the same way addicts isolate and disconnect.

It’s important to remember that the word yoga is “union,” meaning one. Kundalini yoga is said to enable the person to merge with or “yoke” the universal Self, resulting in union with the Divine. All yoga classes introduce meditation in some form. Breath control, affirmations and incense are often included. These caveats are part of Hindu mysticism. Christians especially should know that any form of pagan rituals, dressed up in cultural style and paraded by Hollywood is a dangerous message.

This lovely actress founded a national eating disorder association and I wonder how much of Kundalini yoga will be introduced to other young women struggling with this cultural disease, or those reading People Magazine. Recovery requires something yoga can’t offer: Grace. Forgiveness.

Yoga is not just exercises; it’s a life-style, a practiced and believed philosophy. In the end, yoga can alienate people from the God of the Bible. It might not happen overnight, but it can change beliefs through hypnotic states. Repetitive yoga techniques interspersed with chanting, mantras or affirmations, has direct access to the subconscious mind without any interference from the conscious mind.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” Proverbs 11:17

Ant Status

“I wish to make men the way the eyes sees them, allowing their for accident of perspective…” Lysippo

Following a guru instead of Jesus proved to be about as unsuccessful a life as a knowing Christian can imagine. But even after denouncing my Middle Eastern guru, it took me several years to acknowledge Christ. My pride was wounded, I was stubborn and I was afraid.

Have you ever watched an ant on a counter top? They scurry around, stop if they find something, register whether it’s worthy of an army, if it’s not, they continue along endlessly until they find a treasure. A cake for example is a cache for an ant but it’s delights last only as long as it takes for the human to discover their invasion, then they’re all doomed. They don’t know they’re ruined either, not until the first blast of bug spray. Then they scurry in every direction, completely out of sorts with their original task, and die. Ugh.

That is my definition of most unbelievers, going from one earthly delight to another, feasting unaware until something comes along and blasts them right out of the frosting. Hopefully it won’t be death and they’ll have a second chance, accept Christ, and be free. If not, they’ll die without having ever lived.

I almost squandered my second, third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh, eight…one-thousandth time (isn’t God wonderful?) chance, and I’ve struggled for years to tell my story. Fear was the first deterrent. I thought the guru group might come after me, either legally or with their voodoo. Secondly, I thought people would think I was stupid for having been duped by a kangaroo church in the first place. Any warning I’d heard about the church, I’d deflected with the usual cult thinking: “Well, they can’t understand because they’re lower than I am on the evolutionary scale.” Simple. Done and forgotten.

You can’t be “reasoned” out of a wrong path, not if you’re convinced, and I was convinced an Indian a guru was going to save me.

Finally, I was seriously angry with God for “letting me believe that the guru was a blessing.” In truth, it was me who thought he was a blessing, not God, but it took me awhile to unhinge that realization. I’d become brainwashed in a church that claimed I was “special” and “chosen” by not one guru, but a line of guru’s going back thousands of years and so powerful that all I had to do was whisper one of their names and receive an “instant blessing.” Along with that baloney, if I’d just do everything the guru instructed (through his minion disciples) I’d stop the endless reincarnated lives of torture and wake and realize I was God! Yippee!

Thankfully God didn’t squash me like the ungrateful ant that I’d become. Instead, he began to build in me the foundation I would need to both accept Christ and know forgiveness.

Okay, this is how this is going to work–for now, until Plan B.  I am moving all of Blogger over here, which means some of the older posts are going to look new.  It will give me a good excuse not to write something new for awhile, though I am behind due to my Blogger account being hacked over in Go-Go Land.

Turtle Dove is on the move…

I’m moving Turtle Dove… Sadly, life at Google headquarters proved too stressful for this blogger.  I got the page pink again!