By David Burnet
Stabilizing your experience of the Presence of God may be simpler than we tend to think. I tend to forget this, and I fall for the trap of believing that keeping with the Presence of God, experientially, can be difficult or hard.
It's not hard. It's very simple. And like me, you already know the key to experiencing the Presence of God in a more ongoing way. And you do not even have to be Brother Lawrence to do this. <wry grin>
You can, in fact, stabilize just about any experience - including peace, joy, and even being healthier.
It's simple, yet it does require a bit of effort, patience and time. Simple, but not as easy as I would like -- but when I do it, I surely am glad that I did do such a thing. And it becomes over time, very easy.
Here's the key with some examples. The longer you feel something, the easier it is to keep on feeling it. Automatically. If you are irritable for a while, it's easier to stay irritable. If you are angry for a while, it's easier to stay angry.
The good news is that this works just as well with more positive human experiences. Including peace, joy, being full of Holy Spirit, and experiencing the Presence of God.
If you are like me, and especially when you are not as resourceful as you prefer, when you start to feel any fruit of the Spirit, Holy Spirit, joy in the Spirit, peace with Holy Spirit and such - you will forget.
So, if you start to choose to feel the Holy Spirit in you, or peace, joy, love, patience, self control, and so on for ten seconds before you get distracted, when you realize you got distracted, do it again.
I find that even when I am in a rotten mood or am otherwise unresourceful, I generally double the time in my next try. So if I managed ten seconds, I get to twenty seconds in my next try. And it keeps doubling.
When you practice again, and keep doubling each time, after a few tries it's easier to do. Keeping concentrated focus becomes easier and more stable, too.
When you get to a few hours, getting to a day is not hard. When you can do one day, two days is likely to be easier and within reach on your next try.
After a while, you can have awareness of the Presence of God, peace, joy, being full of Holy Spirit, even allowing Holy Spirit to flow from you to others like rivers - more and more easily. For longer and longer periods of time.
This is so good and so easy and so wonderfully effective that I sometimes wonder why I do not focus on doing this more often. Any ideas about help with remembering and actually doing this more often? If so, please share.
And I'd love to hear from your experiences with this. Especially if you choose to explore doing this.
Immanuel is with us, always; let's learn to focus on having awareness of this as a way of life. We can do this!