God’s Use of and Delight in the Least of These

“Who would make good helpers, do you think? Clever ones? Rich ones? Strong, important ones? Some people might think so, but I’m sure by now you don’t need me to tell you they’d be wrong. Because the people God uses don’t have to know a lot of things, or have a lot of things – they just have to need him a lot.”

– Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible

NOT great things. Ordinary things, by definition. Banal things. Boring. Unattractive. These are the things of the Kingdom. They hold no attraction for those setting their sights on nobility. Those with lofty goals, who may not have read Jeremiah 45:1-5 recently.

I know that too often I am one of them. A person who covets too much to be used ‘greatly’. And each time I do I miss the sense of truth that God uses ordinary people like you and me every day, especially when we’re unsuspecting. We can be, and are, the least of these when we relinquish the chase.

To be used greatly is to shun the limelight. Where we place ourselves in positions where we’re easy to reject. And there are many of those situations. Actually, we cannot avoid them. We only have to have been a Christian for a little while to see how worldly Christians can be, notwithstanding the world that would diss us without a thought or care. Perhaps we’re more covetous than ever, but our humanity would suggest there’s nothing new under the sun.

God will use the rejected much more than he will use those who are favoured in this world. Think of situations where people might not reach out the hand of compassion. Their condemnation is in their own choice.

So far as the Kingdom is concerned, God uses greatly only those who are both destitute and those who serve the destitute. One is used as an instrument for sifting the righteous from the unrighteous. The other is used as the hands and feet of Jesus. Forget the glamour of ministry with a million likes and a church of hundreds or thousands, being an iconoclast leader. That desire will melt away as vanity before His glory in eternity, and be shown for what is was; the sinful nature emblazoned at the height of its pride.

One thing the destitute and those who serve the destitute have in common: they need God a lot.

Whose is the Kingdom? Those who are poor in spirit. (Matthew 5:3)

source https://phonepsychicreadingsguide.com/gods-use-of-and-delight-in-the-least-of-these/

Meditation for the Body, Mind and Soul

Meditation is an approach to training of the mind, meditation has so many wonderful advantages that can help improve your life. Some of the benefits include; reduce of stress, improving concentration, increases self-awareness and acceptance, and increased happiness and an overall calmness and relaxed state.

Several meditation benefits include:

1. Stress reduction
Meditation allows people to take control of their nervous system and emotions. This will help reduce stress and anxiety. One will be able to their regulate emotions in the brain thanks to mindful meditation and be able to focus and relax easily.

2. Improved concentration
When you start to meditate, your mind is trained to focus and concentrate. You can close your eyes and concentrate or leave them open and focus on various objects. Getting distracted is discouraged by meditation, and you can even multitask as there is a greater concentration in the brain which is as a result of increased energy provided by meditation.

3. Increase self-awareness and acceptance
Meditation helps us to recognize who we are, why we are like so, and our behavior. Once you have self-awareness through daily meditation you’ll experience more peace and acceptance in everyday life.

4. Improve cardiovascular and immune health
Meditating every day induces relaxation which increases a nitric oxide compound that causes blood vessels to open up, hence blood pressure dropping. It has also been proven that meditation improves immunity and helps to fight sickness.

5. Encourages a healthy lifestyle
Meditation has helped people stop drinking alcohol, as well as stop smoking. Meditation has made so many people start living a healthier life by taking care of themselves in general and using products that only promote good health.

Here are a few quick steps to start your daily meditation routine for the mind, body and soul.

How to meditate:

· Sit or lie comfortably in a comfortable quiet area.
· Close your eyes or leave them open to focus on an object.
· Breathe slowly and breathe naturally and make no effort to control your breath
· Focus your attention on your breath slowly
· Notice your body movement as you breathe and continue focusing on your breath
· Start meditation for two to three minutes to the start and try longer periods at a time such ad 10 to 15 minutes.

It’s clear that meditation has a lot of benefits which enhances our day to day lives. Practice meditation and you’ll enjoy all the many healing benefits and so much more.

source https://phonepsychicreadingsguide.com/meditation-for-the-body-mind-and-soul/

Three Phases of Practicing Meditation

Thirty-five years ago, the idea of daily meditation seemed foreign to us. But today, it’s a normal part of our daily schedule, even if it means getting up thirty minutes earlier or skipping TV to do so.

People of all walks of life practice meditation now, unlike in the past when it was mainly for stereotypical radical spiritual devotees.

The scientifically documented health benefits may surprise you: improves regulation of emotions; decreases depression, inflammation, and stress; improves brain health and memory; increases peace of mind; releases a natural, healthy, feel-good brain opiate, and much more.

Three ascertainable stages exist in committing yourself to regular meditation. First, you wonder if you’re doing it right because nothing seems to happen. Next, you notice subtle changes in your perception of yourself and your life and you realize there’s really something to it. In the third stage you find the regular habit of meditation includes all the benefits listed above and it becomes as normal as going to bed and waking up in the morning. There’s no reluctance to do it, like you encounter in the first stage–you just do it to get your daily feel-good fix.

Don’t worry if you’re struggling to get past the first stage. Maintain discipline and you’ll eventually get the hang of it.

To the skeptics, we understand your cynicism because we’ve been there, but the science behind it is so overwhelming that we urge you to consider it.

In some cases, entering the second stage can be scary; don’t worry, you won’t become a vacant-minded zombie. Instead, you’ll learn to disengage from daily mind-dramas and monkey mind. Have you ever walked along a beach and the waves lulled you into a peaceful state of mind? That’s the feeling you can generate on a daily basis, anywhere–all you need is a little discipline.

We list five tips below to help you get started, or to go deeper if you’ve already started.

1. Keep in mind that meditation is best approached as a long-term discipline. You may feel at first that you’re just going through the motions. But if you stay the course, you’ll reach a point where you’ll know exactly when you’re (easily) entering a meditative state of mind. It may take you weeks or even months, but you will get there if you continue.

2. Drop your expectations. The reason that nothing seems to be happening at first is that nothing is supposed to happen, in a manner of speaking. The practice involves detaching from your mind, so of course it’ll seem like nothing is happening because you’re used to mind-chatter all the time.

3. Expect your subconscious mind to rebel, as it can do with major changes in your life. Your collective subconscious (fears and defenses) may react while you are attempting to detach from it, so recognize the ever-so creative impressions (e.g., an itch or “you forgot to turn off your oven”) generated by it to resist your efforts.

4. To avoid falling asleep in this discipline, get enough sleep and sit upright instead of lying down because your mind is conditioned to sleep lying laying down. You’ll find with practice that you’ll feel refreshed after meditation. Scientific studies have found that the process of meditation actually replicates many of the benefits of sleep, so you may need less sleep. In our long-term experience, waking up thirty minutes earlier for a meditation session before a busy day doesn’t seem like losing sleep due to the natural health benefits.

5. Sit comfortably (you don’t have to sit like a yogi), close your eyes, breathe deeply, and focus on your chest-plate (or third eye). You can also try laying your arms away from your sides and focus on letting all stress drain away. Or pretend you’re facing a wall of rock while mountain climbing, where your intense focus is vital. That’s all there is to it, along with the discipline to avoid quitting. Other helpful tips include slowly counting from one to 100 or 1000, doing it on an empty stomach such as first thing in the morning, trying it after exercise, and asking for help from your guides of the Light.

We encourage you to practice regular meditation to reap all the wonderful benefits, especially peace of mind.

source https://phonepsychicreadingsguide.com/three-phases-of-practicing-meditation/

The Visualization Meditation Technique

There are 5 categories of meditation:

1. Concentration Meditation
2. Reflective Meditation
3. Mindfulness Meditation
4. Heart-centered Meditation
5. Creative Meditation

Of these 5…this article will focus on the Mindfulness Meditation category:

The Mindfulness Meditation is arguably one of the foremost and powerful meditation techniques. It places on cultivating a highly mindful and receptive attention towards any form of action or objects around your sphere of influence. Mindfulness meditation is amongst the types of meditations that aids you in learning a simple thing; which is to pay attention. This form of meditation is renowned for providing pain relief and help to those going through depression and anxiety.

Mindfulness Meditation is one of the foremost types of meditation, and it is considered to have a calming effect on the mind. The transformative power it has can’t be overstated. It gives one with great strength and conviction to redirect the course of one’s life. Below are 8 types of Mindfulness Meditation techniques that are equally very important.

1. Vipassana meditation
2. Deep breathing meditation
3. Body scan meditation
4. Visualization meditation
5. Mindful breathing
6. Mindful eating
7. Sitting Meditation
8. Walking Meditation

Of these 8 types…this article will actually focus on just one type of Mindfulness Meditation technique: the “Visualization Meditation”.

Visualization Meditation

There is no gainsaying the fact that one of the most powerful and inspiring a person can experience is visualization. It also goes hand in hand with being able to manifest what one wants to see, and then make it a reality. The mind is very powerful. It’s abilities, astonishing. And once you engage in the practice of visualization meditation, you can grow your abilities in leaps and bounds, especially towards starting the kind of life you desire.

Visualization Meditation requires focusing one’s attention on a visual object. It is quite popular and potent amongst all other types of meditation. It is more than just an inner technique, and it can affect the outer world’s conditions, directly. One actually gets benefits from visualization. Looking at it from one perspective, visualization is just another form of meditation per se, whereby one gazes upon the internal image, instead of the outer image of an object.

Visualization meditation allows for one to get more freedom to choose images he or she will concentrate on. One can actually imagine seeing any spiritual teacher, scene or object, without having to possess a physical image to see. Hence, one gets to possess an inexhaustible collection of images, from where any thing can be conceived. This is so that one can easily make a choice of the one that accurately represents and transmits power from the particular state one wants to visualize.

Visualization meditation goes a long way to help people achieve two things: closeness to their desired end state of mind; and the second is like the first: it rids their consciousness of negativity and inhibitions that withhold them. Once visualization meditation is constantly put into practice, the manifestation one seeks will be made manifest.

source https://phonepsychicreadingsguide.com/the-visualization-meditation-technique/