Good Morning Garden

Read Psalm 91.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Here the lion stands for a difficulty of which we are so afraid that it seems to us a very lion in our path, rushing at us in the open. How different, on the other hand, is the attack of the adder, or snake; for it creeps upon us in the dark. And here we are promised that our complexes, dragons though they be, shall be dissolved by the realization of God. There is nothing that can be done by any form of psychotherapy that cannot be better done by the Practice of the Presence of God.

The last three verses are in themselves a glorious psalm of ringing joy and triumph.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. There is nothing hypothetical or contingent here. The statement indicates the fixed decision – I will deliver him. And why? – because he has set his love upon me.

I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. In the bible the “name” of anything means the nature or character of that thing. Now the nature of God is perfect, omnipresent, all-powerful good, boundless love; and to “know” this is to be set on high above all our difficulties.

The last two verses gather up all the implications and promises of this wonderful poem, and present them to the fearful or doubting heart as a song of triumph. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.

As we face the dangers and pitfalls of life, there is safety and security to be found in our faith. God’s love will deliver us from anything harmful and will transform negative events into glorious victories if we believe in God and obey God’s will. Not only will we be protected from harm, we will be exalted with long life and salvation. God will love us, hear us and answer us with what we need for our best good. We will be secure in our gardens to love, live and prosper.

Knowing God’s name,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Psalm 91.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. This clause has been taken to indicate some kind of favoritism on the part of God, whereas, of course, such a thing is impossible. It means simply that those who pray are saved from trouble that would otherwise overtake them, and that does, in fact, overtake those who do not pray.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. In the Bible, the word promise is the name given to a statement of some spiritual law. So, a Bible promise is a statement of the consequences that naturally follow from certain states of consciousness. If Boyle’s law were written in the Bible idiom, it would read something like this: “As I live, saith the Lord, whenever thou shalt double the pressure of a gas, thou shalt halve the volume, temperature remaining constant.” In the language of natural science, our Bible promise would run: “ By meditating regularly on the Presence of God with you, and directing your life in accordance with that fact, you become immune from any kind of danger.”

In order to reap the benefits of these promises (laws), we must dwell in, habituate, live each day in, submission to the will of God. We can not receive the promises made above if we insist on living and thinking according to our own will and ways. Just as with all laws (promises), we must know and follow the law to enjoy the rewards. We can not ignore the law of gravity and survive, nor can we ignore God’s law and prevail when those around us fall. If we do live and dwell in God’s law each day, then we can properly tend the small garden given to us here below, and thereby demonstrate our ability to tend the larger garden waiting for us above.

Dwelling in the little garden,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Psalm 91.

For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. This is one of the loveliest of all the promises in the Bible. For tender beauty it stands alone. He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways – and it is meant for you and for me. It might have seemed appropriate enough that some exalted Being should be given an escort of angels to surround him, to support him, to keep him in all his ways. But the Bible is the book of Everyman, and this promise is given to you and to me.

When we dwell in the shadow of God’s wings, we abide by God’s word in thought, word and deed. We accept God’s protection and our dependence on God for our welfare, guidance and salvation. It is then that God gives the angels charge over us. It is then that all things will come to us for our best good. Then, even if we do dash our foot against a stone, it will be for a good and needed purpose in our lives.

In assurance,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Psalm 91.

And now the Word of Truth is represented as addressing you with an authoritative assurance that your prayer will be answered, that is some way or other – not necessarily in the way that you expect – you will be rescued from your difficulty.

Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wing shalt thou trust: His Truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

You are to have no apprehension, for your protection is now assured in one of those illustrations from everyday life, in which the Bible abounds. The mother hen, at the slightest threat of danger, gathers the little chicks under her wings, covering them “with her feathers”; thus does God shield you from all danger once you have elected to trust Him. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. It is the knowledge of the Truth about God and man that makes the demonstration.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. The arrow that flieth by day and the destruction that wasteth at noon refer to any difficulty of which you are consciously aware. It is, so to say, a daytime problem. The terror by night and the pestilence that walketh in darkness, on the contrary, imply something that, unknown to you, is working in your subconscious mind. Modern psychology has shown that most of our difficulties have their roots in the depth of the subconscious. These are indeed terrors of the mental night and pestilences of the darkness.

Whatever is limiting or hurting us, weighing us down or contributing to our failure, fear or lack, will be overcome when we know and fully accept the knowledge of the Truth about God and turn to God for our deliverance. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

In truth,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Our Fortress

Read Psalm 91.

Observe that the poem opens by announcing the irresistible power of prayer. Then in order to bring home the fact that this law applies to us, and that by no possibility could we be an exception, it now changes over to the first person and makes us say “I.” It compels us to voice the I AM.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. The Lord means God. How can knowledge be a presence? Secular knowledge, which is intellectual, cannot; but the true knowledge of God is an actual experience – not a thing of the head, but of the heart – and this is indeed a Presence. As a general rule, people contact this Real Self only vaguely and occasionally. Then, if they pray regularly, the gleams of intuition gradually strengthen into a definite sense of the Presence of God.

In Him will I trust. However worried or depressed you may be, however full of doubts and misgivings, still the fact that you are praying means that you have at least enough faith for that. The faith to go on praying in the midst of doubts about results is the tiny grain of mustard seed that Jesus says is sufficient for practical purposes. Declaring in Him will I trust means that you have now determined to trust by ceasing to worry and fear. This is the legitimate and spiritual use of the will.

The “real self” of each human is God’s consciousness, manifesting itself through mortal existence here below. We are each but a small bud of God’s consciousness pushing into the physical world through human consciousness. Each child carries the spark of the divine presence within themselves. Each person can choose to accept the truth of their existence as a part of God’s consciousness.

In God will I trust,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

The Ninety-first Psalm is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. Like the rest of Scripture, the underlying thought is developed through a series of symbols, and it is by the appreciation of the values lying behind these symbols that the power of this prayer is appropriated.

The way to get the most out of this psalm is to read it through quietly; pausing after each clause to consider the meaning and assenting to this mentally. If you are fearful you will find, after working through the prayer two or three times, that your fear will have gone and that you are now looking at things from a different point of view.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the almighty. (Psalm 91:1).

The Secret Place of the most High is your own consciousness, and this fact is the most important practical discovery in the science of religion. The error usually made is to suppose the Secret Place of the most High to be somewhere outside of yourself, an error fatal to our hopes, because our success in prayer depends upon getting some degree of contact with God; and since He is only to be contacted within, as long as we are looking without we must fail in our objective. Jesus emphasized this truth, The kingdom of God is within you. Again, he said that when we pray we are to enter into the closet and shut the door, meaning, to retire in thought within our own consciousness. In fact, this doctrine of the Secret Place and the wonders that can happen therein is taught throughout the Bible.

God speaks to us through our consciousness. God does not slip into our pockets at church, does not imbue us through our eyes by reading the Bible, nor does God fill us with the Holy Spirit through hearing the words of a sermon in our ears. It is through our consciousness, our thoughts and intuition, that God reveals the truths that creates the feelings and the faith that sustains us. So, if we are to be in communion with God, it must be in our minds through our consciousness. Communion is not a place, nor a group of words read or heard. It manifests itself from the conscious decision or invitation to attune our attention and thoughts to being with God. This can and does take place in Churches and can grow from words read and heard. But its source is our consciousness, and its path into our lives is mental assent. When we are looking for God, the place to search is our consciousness, the Secret Place of the Most High.

Seeking God from within,
Stan

Read Full Post »