REMEDY: Journaling Practice for Week Two

Know Yourself That You May Know God

A Deeper Look
In this famous story, the army of Israel faces the great army of the Philistines. For 40 days, Goliath, described as nine feet tall and dressed in powerful weaponry, challenges any Israelite soldier to come out and fight him. No one took him up on the challenge. We pick up the story after David hears, for the first time, Goliath’s humiliating challenge to Israel’s army.

Read

• 1 Samuel 17:26-45

Study

• What are some of the challenges, accusations and messages David is getting from the people around him?
• What feelings might you be experiencing if you were David?
• How does David live out his true self against he powerful forces and pressures that seek to mold him into someone he is not?

Journal

• What forces and pressures from circumstances and people cause you to shrink back in fear or “wear armor” that does not fit your true self? Many of us are so unaccustomed to distinguishing our true self from our false self that it may seem difficult to know where to begin. Try completing the following sentence as a first step: I am beginning to realize about myself...

-- adapted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook by Peter Scazzero

REMEDY: Lectio Divina Practice for Week Two

Psalm 27: One Thing I Ask

There are a lot of ways you can pray Scripture but the tradition of Lectio Divina uses the following four phases, these are the ones used in the classical Benedictine model established in the sixth century. Lectio offers a natural flow from one phase to the next rather than a lock-step march.

Phase One - Lectio: reading

What does the text say?

TURN to the text and read it several times slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the “still, small voice” of a particular word or phrase that says, “I am for you today.”

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation

What does the text say specifically to me at this point in my life?

TAKE the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it to yourself, allowing it to interact with your inner world of concerns, memories and ideas. Let your imagination engage the text. Images are not necessarily distractions, but invitations into dialogue with God.

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer

What does God say to me and what do I say to God through the text?

SPEAK to God. Interact with God as you would with one who you know loves and accepts you. Experience this God-breathed word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that God’ Word has awakened in you. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation

Being still, resting in God’s presence, and letting God work through your mind and heart.

REST for 10 minutes in God’s embrace. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that God is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week Two

Tune In

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

John 10:27

Have you ever tried to tune in a radio station only to be frustrated by finding static rather than music? And when you fiddled with the dial again, suddenly you hear a clear signal. The fact is that clear signal always existed on the airwaves. The difference is that now you have adjusted your tuner to the right frequency.

In our hectic lives, there are so many signals bombarding our senses that it can become difficult to distinguish God’s voice from the deafening static noise of life. Fasting enables us to tune out the world’s distractions and tune in to God. As we fast, we deny our flesh. When we deny our flesh, we become more in tune to the Holy Spirit and can hear God’s voice more clearly. If you truly listen for God’s voice, you will hear it. And when you hear it, your faith will increase.

Fasting enables us to tune out the world’s distractions and tune in to God.

If you desire to tune out the static of life and really tune into the voice of God, come to Him first and foremost with ears willing to listen and a heart ready to obey what He says (Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 66:2). The more we practice being in His presence, the clearer and more recognizable His voice becomes.

Fasting is more important, more important perhaps than many of us have supposed.... When exercised with a pure heart and a right motive, fasting may provide us with a key to unlock doors where others may have failed; a window opening up new horizons in the unseen world, a spiritual weapon of God’s provision, mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

—Arthur Wallis

Prayer Focus: In this time of fasting, what is your mind tuned to? What distractions do you need to remove so that you can focus on God? Prepare your heart to hear the voice of God, and ask Him to help you remove distractions that keep you from focusing on Him and hearing His voice clearly.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional

REMEDY: Divine Hours for Week One

Fixed-hour Prayer

The Divine Hours is a soul-training practice for fixed-hour prayer. It presents the prayers to be prayed at the divine hours of every day:

• Morning prayers, for prayer between 6 and 9;
• Midday prayers for praying between 11 and 2; and
• Evening prayers to pray between 5 and 8, and help us gently close the day.

A website to help you with the Divine Hours can be found here. This website also provides an iPhone app which you can download here. If you know of apps on other platforms (Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry) please let us know, and we will try to pass that info along as well.

REMEDY: Contemplation Practice for Week One

Silence and Solitude

Preparation

You may wish to prepare yourself for this time of contemplation by:

• Making sure your attention is not required by anything else. For example, not driving a car, crossing a street, talking with someone else
• Consider finding a quiet place where you’re not likely to be interrupted. Awareness and attention are fleeting, jumping from one thing to another and one thought to another. So, a quiet place with few distractions seems to work best.
• Eliminate as many visual stimuli as possible as they tend to distract and draw our attention away.
• Use a timer to help you keep track of time

Practice
We are accustomed to think of Scripture as the revelation of God. And so it is. We want now to discover the revelation that silence brings. To take in the revelation that Scripture offers, you must expose yourself to Scripture. To take in the revelation that silence offers you must first attain silence.

• Take a comfortable posture.
• Close your eyes.
• Try and attain stillness and silence of body and mind for a period of ten minutes.
• At the end of ten minutes, open your eyes.

Share with us online (if you wish), what you did and what you experienced in these ten minutes. Tell us what attempts you made to attain silence and how successful you attempts were. Describe this silence if you can. Tell us what you experienced in this silence. Tell us anything you thought and felt during this exercise.

The experience of people who attempt this exercise is infinitely varied. Most people discover, to their surprise, that silence is something they are simply not accustomed to. That no matter what they do they cannot still the constant wandering of their mind or quieten an emotional turmoil they feel within their heart. Others feel themselves approaching the frontiers of silence. Then they panic and withdraw. Silence can be a frightening experience.

-adapted from Anthony De Mello by R. Martoia

REMEDY Newsletter

Some of you have inquired about more details on how to approach the "Soul Training" practices we are working through here. Pastor Dave has written up a newsletter-styled introduction to the practices, the schedule, and why we are doing them. You can find and download that newsletter here.

REMEDY: Journaling Practice for Week One

The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

A Deeper Look
Saul, king of Israel, was instructed by God to fight and completely destroy the Amalekites. He succumbed, however, to the wishes of his fighting men and did only part of God’s will due to a lack of self-awareness (emotional health) and attentiveness toward God (contemplation).

Read

• 1 Samuel 15:7-24

Study

• Verse 11 describes God’s and Samuel’s response to Saul’s actions. What about their response impacts you?
• How does this differ from Saul’s response in verse 12 and 13?
• What might have been going on beneath the surface of Saul’s life that he was unaware of?
• What are some examples of how you go through the motions of making “burnt offerings” and “sacrifices” rather than “obeying the voice of the Lord?”

Journal

• What challenges keep you from slowing down your life to be with God?
• In what ways is your life out of balance between contemplation and activity?

-- adapted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook by Peter Scazzero

REMEDY: Lectio Divina Practice for Week One

Psalm 1: Like a Tree

There are a lot of ways you can pray Scripture but the tradition of Lectio Divina uses the following four phases, these are the ones used in the classical Benedictine model established in the sixth century. Lectio offers a natural flow from one phase to the next rather than a lock-step march.

Phase One - Lectio: reading

What does the text say?

TURN to the text and read it several times slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the “still, small voice” of a particular word or phrase that says, “I am for you today.”

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation

What does the text say specifically to me at this point in my life?

TAKE the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it to yourself, allowing it to interact with your inner world of concerns, memories and ideas. Let your imagination engage the text. Images are not necessarily distractions, but invitations into dialogue with God.

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer

What does God say to me and what do I say to God through the text?

SPEAK to God. Interact with God as you would with one who you know loves and accepts you. Experience this God-breathed word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that God’ Word has awakened in you. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation

Being still, resting in God’s presence, and letting God work through your mind and heart.

REST for 10 minutes in God’s embrace. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that God is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week One

Return to Me

That is why the LORD says “Turn to me now, while there is time.
Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping and mourning.”
Joel 2:12, NLT

If we look at the kind of fasting that took place in the Old Testament, it would be easy to assume that the reason for fasting is to gain forgiveness. In the book of Joel, the Israelites had wandered far from God, and their sinfulness had resulted in famine and pestilence in the land. Through the prophet Joel, God called them to repentance, ordering them to declare a sacrificial fast, which along with mourning and weeping, would show God the sincerity of their repentance. In return the prophet said that perhaps God would “send you a blessing instead of this curse” (verse 14, NLT).

Such a fast of repentance is seen in the Old Testament time and again, because under the Old Covenant, man had to rely on his works and sacrifices to avert the wrath of God. But under the New Covenant, we don’t have to fast for forgiveness. Every wrong we have done and will do was forgiven at the cross, and when we accept Christ, we live under the New Covenant of grace and forgiveness!

First Thessalonians 5:9 tells us that “...God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us” (NLT). So then, why do we, as people under the New Covenant, devote ourselves to fasting and prayer?

We don’t have to fast for forgiveness.
Every wrong we have done and will do was forgiven at the cross.

As we walk with God, there are times that we feel far from Him or disconnected. Joel’s words resonate with us, even if we live in a context of grace: “turn to me now while there is time.” There are times we realize that though we have chosen to follow Jesus, the flame of our love for Him has grown cold.

Your replacement of meal times with time spent in prayer today can result in a new richness, a rewarding connection with the Father. No matter where you are on your journey with Jesus, you can always take a step closer toward Him.

Prayer Focus: As we begin this time of prayer and fasting, let’s turn our hearts toward God. Make a commitment to seek Him daily. Pray that your love for Christ will be increased and your passion for Him will be reignited over the 8 weeks of REMEDY.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional

Update from Dave in Uganda #4

September 1 - Day 8

Today is the day I most dread of my trip in Uganda. It is the day we venture out over 100km from Kampala out to the village of Kassanda. I was blessed to be part of planting a church in that area six years ago. The church is self-sufficient and growing and Crosspointe played a big part in helping them construct their church building. Don't misunderstand me. I love Kassanda and it's people. I dislike very much the arduous journey required to get there!

Jim was under the weather today so Grace, Robert and I loaded up early and headed out on the over three hour journey to get there. I held out some hope that this trip's version might be a bit smoother since the last time I was here, they were paving huge sections of the road. Sadly, the contractor simply laid blacktop over the dirt roads and it has cracked and fallen apart. The new contractor is digging the roads back up to fix them properly. Needless to say it was a bone-jarring

journey!

I was able to pay the fees for 4 children today and visit each of them at their school or home. These children are in a very remote part of Uganda and yet are performing very well. One of them is preparing to complete his A levels and prepare for University. We began with over 12 children in Kassanda but one by one they have either dropped from the program or moved into Kampala.

On the return trip to Kampala we drove straight into one of the most severe storms I have ever experienced in Uganda. I experienced hail for the first time! The hail has knocked out power to a good portion of the city. Thank God for generators! After pulling off the road several times due to lack of visibility, we finally made it back to the guest house.

We had new guests arrive today from Canada. They are a beautiful older couple from Vancouver Island, Canada who are here working with the Anglican church doing discipleship ministries. Over dinner we learned that they spent thirty years as missionaries to the Inuit in the Arctic Circle! What a change! From the Arctic Circle to the Equator. They told stories of weather in the Arctic with wind chill temps at minus 100. Today the mercury rose to about 90 degrees. Imagine that, a 190 degree difference. It doesn't even compute for me.

Tomorrow the Leadership Training Seminar begins. I will be teaching 50 Ugandan pastors and leaders through The Whole Story and then into leadership topics. I'm exicted about the possibilities and the influence God is allowing me to have in the churches represented by these pastors. Say a prayer for me, please.

Day 8 Recap - 1 bank. 3 schools. 4 students. Only a dozen or so remaining!