Mindfulness and collective suffering

MINDFULNESS AND COLLECTIVE SUFFERING

God’s mindfulness towards us is a two way thing -  God starts the process of mindfulness towards us and invites us to respond. And right there begins a divine process of inner wholeness and transformation. (Romans 12:2 -  being transformed by the renewing of the mind). So What becomes transformed? – it is more than just behaviour - it is the consciousness of who we really are in union with God through Jesus. This consciousness is what captures the present moment and It fills the now with its fulness and focus. It is not simply hanging around in the background somewhere – It is front and centre in the mind. It becomes the eternal Now of our existence – always active. 

We develop in the growth of mindfulness with God through the challenges of life. We each have different personal situations to contend with; relational, financial, self-worth, general fears and anxieties. But the greatest challenge is not what the actual external situation is but the fear on the inside that needs to be faced and met with faith.

Our state of mindful faith in these situations determines the quality of peace and stability in our personal lives. Otherwise life becomes a series of reactions because we are not in that settled place of mindful faith within ourselves and this affects the quality of our wisdom in decision making and the ability to recover from the consequences of our mistakes and from the mishaps that happen unexpectedly.  

When we are flowing in mindfulness with God we can not only find a place of peace within ourselves but a place of empowered faith in God that makes us more aware of his compassion for the pain and suffering that others are going through so that we can touch his compassion and be more effective in providing help and care and prayer.

In this way we can come together in many places as communities of faith, love and care, being mindful of one another that we are all going through different things at different times at different levels, and being aware of a ‘faith safety net’ of common goodwill and care in the group.

But - when the entire global community comes under a shared existential threat of common adversity and danger there is a level of collective stress and anxiety that intensifies each person’s personal challenges and causes a collective consciousness of unresolved hardship or suffering. It is felt or discerned as a silent suffering that seems to hang in the air over people everywhere as a spiritual energy of darkness and uncertainty. This causes an accumulation of distress, physically, emotionally, financially, politically and spiritually, as fear and darkness invade the minds of people. 
Light has to come into this darkness.

It is at times like this that God provides grace for us to operate at a deeper level of focussed faith that his power is at work in the entire situation. 

At times like these there is such a thing as standing in the gap. The Bible says God looks for someone to stand in the gap for others on his behalf. 
Ezekiel 22:30 So I looked for someone among them… who would stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the whole Land (eres-  earth), that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

This is the cry of the Father’s heart that was answered by Jesus almost two thousand years ago when he stood in the gap for us in his death and resurrection, and brought us into union with himself and the Father through The Holy Spirit. 
There is a story of this in the Bible that represents this standing in the gap principle. It is the story of Joshua when He led Israel across the river Jordan, out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. (Joshua is the Old Testament name for Jesus, Yeshua)

Joshua 3:1 Joshua and all the people of Israel left Acacia and arrived that evening at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped for a few days before crossing.
On the third day officers went through the camp giving these instructions:"When you see the priests carrying the Ark of God, follow them. You have never before been where we are going now, so they will guide you. However, stay 2000 cubits behind, with a clear space between you and the Ark; For tomorrow, the Lord will do a great miracle."
In the morning Joshua ordered the priests, "Take up the Ark and lead us across the river!"And so they started out.
"Today,"the Lord told Joshua,"I will give you great honor, so that all Israel will know that I am with you just as I was with Moses. Instruct the priests who are carrying the Ark to stop at the edge of the river."
Then Joshua summoned all the people and told them; Today you are going to know for sure that the living God is among you and that he will, without fail, drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites--all the people who now live in the land you will soon occupy. Think of it! The Ark of God, who is Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the river! "Now select twelve men, one from each tribe, for a special task. When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet, the river will stop flowing as though held back by a dam, and will pile up as though against an invisible wall!" Now it was the harvest season and the Jordan was overflowing all its banks; but as the people set out to cross the river and as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river's edge, suddenly, far up the river at the city of Adam, the water began piling up as though against a dam! And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was empty. Then all the people crossed at a spot where the river was close to the city of Jericho, and the priests who were carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan and waited as all the people passed by.

Joshua told the company of twelve priests (representing the twelve tribes) to carry the ark upon their shoulders. The ark contained the presence of God.

The people were to follow this company at a distance of 2000 cubits. Everything that happened to them was a pattern for us to learn from in these days. 

The priests were commanded to stand at the edge of the Jordan River and God said he would do a great miracle and drive out all their enemies before them. The people were told ‘When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet, the river will stop flowing as though held back by a dam and will pile up as though against an invisible wall (all the way back to Adam!’).
This was the work of God, not the work of the priests; all they had to do was to carry the ark, the presence of God, but they had to have faith that God would do the mighty miracle work in the world of the unseen. Their natural minds would have said ‘You are going to drown in there’, but they would have had no doubt that they were bearing the presence of God on behalf of all those people.

Then all the people crossed at a spot where the river was close to the city of Jericho, and the priests who were carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan and waited as all the people passed by.

The people would never have entered into the Promised Land or entered into a new life under God where they could give thanks to have his spiritual blessings and his provision of fields and crops and houses. They had become used to struggling and straggling in the wilderness without hope or confidence – and now their time had come. But it required that the priests stood in the gap. 

THE STORY OF US TODAY.
1Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
The people were told in that Scripture to keep at a distance of 2000 cubits as they followed the priests who were carrying the ark of the presence of God. The obedience of the priests carrying the presence of God and stepping into the turbulent Jordan river prepared the way for the miracle of God in stopping the river from preventing all the people to cross over on dry land into the blessings of the Land of Promise.

Those priests were a prophetic picture of Jesus as our High Priest overcoming darkness and death for us so that we could enter into the fulness of the Promise of God in Jesus.
What could this 2000 cubits signify? 
Consider the fact that it was about 2000 years ago that Jesus was born, but it was some years later at around thirty years of age when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan and carried the presence of God in that river for all of humanity. His baptism in the Jordan river was a picture of his death and resurrection, just as our water baptism is described in the Bible.
Romans 6:3 we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we can also walk in newness of life. 
Jesus stood in the gap for all of us so that we could be included in his life.

In these days of global confusion and darkness God is calling for a people like those priests, to stand in the gap and to create a pathway for others to find light and truth and to enter in to a place of confidence and hope in the fulness of God. 

Today we can be that company of priests that can stand in the gap for others. We can carry the presence of God. We carry that presence in our hearts by faith. We are able to live in the two-way mindfulness of God, being conscious of his desire to express his life through us and with us.
We can become the light of God in the midst of great darkness.
What does it mean for us to put our feet in the Jordan like those priests did? They faced a huge challenge of faith; they would have thought they could have drowned in that turbulent river, but they trusted God because they had been told; ‘The Lord will do a great miracle’.

We are following in the footsteps of those priests, but more than that, it means that we are following Jesus in our willingness to experience the cross in our lives, for ourselves and for the sake of others. Taking up our cross is that same kind of challenge of faith that those priests faced. It is the challenge of denying ourselves for the sake of being aligned to the miracle working power of God.

This is because we know that the experience of the cross always leads to the experience of his resurrection. We find faith for his supernatural working in the world of the unseen for us, not only in our lives, but also in the challenging situations of those people in our world that we stand in the gap for.

There are many people that you may have been praying for, that are struggling and straggling, but God wants to make a way for them to enter in to a new life of faith and hope and love. He hears the cry of the suffering hearts and he has made a way. There is still time for them.