Recently I have been struggling with pride before man and God. The scriptures say that the Lord resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. So especially leading in leading others He began to remove some of the grace that I had begun to think was my own. It’s amazing that God desires to work with us to reveal the glory of God but to think that we can do it ourselves is ignorant to say the least.
So the Lord has begun to remind me of the practice of silent meditation. Throughout the years I have had great insight from Father John Hoover, Thomas Kempis, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The essence of silent meditation is not chanting a scripture or thinking on the throne of God, or even meditating on scripture; Silent meditation is quieting your mind and heart before the creator and opening your self up to His depths. My friend Father Hoover does this two times a day for twenty minutes.
Yesterday I began to experiment with this again; I spent all of my allotted prayer time before work completely quiet. It was strangely refreshing… almost new. About 10:00 the enemy sent someone to test my peace and amazingly I had the ability to completely quiet myself and not respond to them. Actually the Lord gave me the grace to bless them and pray for them. About 1:30 a Spanish speaking employee in association with my job came by the store. I have seen him maybe 3 times in the past year. As we spoke very briefly about what had done I felt the rich presence of the Holy Spirit. I prayed momentarily about what to do with this feeling since I know very little Spanish and this guy didn’t know hardly any English. So I approached Him with the broken Spanish I knew asking him if he was a believer in Christ. Immediately he lit up and we fellowshipped as best we could with the huge language barrier, He told me he was a worship leader in Columbia. I remembered that just that morning I had read Colossians 3:11… We are no longer slave nor free, Jew or Greek but we are all in Christ and Christ in all. I read this scripture to Him and encouraged him that I was not American and he was not Columbian but we were one…. It was a rich time in the spirit. He had a word from me from Jeremiah 29:11 which he could only tell me the scripture reference because of the language barrier. After he had left I read the scripture and I don’t know when I felt the presence of the Lord more richly than in those moments where those sometimes generic words from Jeremiah came alive to me for the first time… “I have plans for you not the harm you…”
Yesterday was amazing and it was not because I earned it… it was because God is good.
So today I spent a little time in silent meditation and had an interesting vision that I thought had rich purpose. I was quiet and looking up in the darkness of the quiet and I saw a skull of a demon or devil with pointy horns and all. And I felt the Lord revealing and confirming the power of silent mediation. Silent meditation is the place where the authority and power of God is bestowed on the children of God.
Collision of Kingdoms 
I’m there with you. Just this morning (Sat.), I feel as though the Lord reminded me that spiritual formation only happens by the Spirit. Externally we are bombarded with all kinds of perspectives, doctrines, criticisms, etc. Eventually these things can become the basis by which we live a life by the law based on man’s ideas vs. a life of liberty by the Spirit. I’m getting sick of that need of affirmation from people because I really think it puts a limit on what God wants to do.
It is that silence before God in an awareness toward Him that enables us to be connected with our Creator. It is there that we are to receive guidance that we and the community around us need. I’m getting tired of trying to live my life in any other way than simply being open to God, whether through people or in solitude. It is the ministry of the Spirit that we should be discerning, not whether or not something lines up with my theology.