How Can We Incorporate Spiritual Living into Our Daily Lives?

[lomarespio]

Hello everyone.

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on how we can integrate spiritual practices into our modern lives. With so many distractions and fast-paced routines, it can be hard to maintain a sense of inner peace.

What are some practical ways to bring more mindfulness, meditation, or other spiritual practices into your day-to-day activities? For those of you who prioritize Spiritual Living, how do you stay grounded?

Do you have any tips for balancing spiritual growth with the demands of work, family, and other commitments?

Looking forward to your insights and suggestions!

 

[GRACE_ambassador]

Looking forward to your insights and suggestions!

Precious friend, please see my posting on your profile page, for a good start on this
Very subject.

Amen.

 

[Deuteronomy]

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on how we can integrate spiritual practices into our modern lives. With so many distractions and fast-paced routines, it can be hard to maintain a sense of inner peace. What are some practical ways to bring more mindfulness, meditation, or other spiritual practices into your day-to-day activities? For those of you who prioritize Spiritual Living, how do you stay grounded? Do you have any tips for balancing spiritual growth with the demands of work, family, and other commitments?

Hello Lomarespio, as Christians, our "spiritual practices", as well as where we find our "sense of inner peace", is somewhat different than it is for the rest of the world. For instance, as far as having a "sense of peace" goes, we don't look inside, but outside of ourselves to find that. We look to Him, IOW, for everything really, because He is our portion in this world, yes?

As the Lord Jesus told us (in this wonderful little passage),

Matthew 11​

28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. ​

29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. ​

30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”​

There is this important point from Him to consider too.

John 8​

31 Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; ​

32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ​

The thing is, before we can know the truth and the peace that is freely offered to us in Christ, first and foremost, we have to make sure that we know Him, personally (e.g. 2 Corinthians 13:5), because EVERYTHING in a Christian's life flows from Him and the relationship that we have with Him, as true believers.

I noticed what you wrote about your "spiritual status" (unsure) and when you were "saved" (not yet) on your profile page here at CCHat, so my question is, where are you today

I ask because any advice that I'd have to offer you about practical ways of living as a Christian (like learning how to practice the presence of God in your life, for instance .. e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) would require becoming a Christian first (because again, it's from our personal, living and growing relationship with Him, the relationship that He establishes with us when He redeems us and saves us from our sins, that everything else flows).

So, how can I/we help you with that, becoming a believer, that is (unless that has already happened, and if it has, please be sure to let us know).

Praying for you!

May God continually bless you as you seek to find Him and know Him!!

~Deuteronomy (David)

 

[Edward429451]

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on how we can integrate spiritual practices into our modern lives. With so many distractions and fast-paced routines, it can be hard to maintain a sense of inner peace.

Oh I don't know about that, it's not hard to maintain peace in your spirit once you get used to constantly being aware of the Spirit of the Lord. Being led by the Spirit means that, mostly, we take on a new outlook on day to day life. Yes, the problem is distractions but you either believe in God or you don't, and if you do, then, it's all true. And He says, be led by the Spirit. I didn't know how to do that.

So I started inviting the Lord to go with me to work. And I'd talk to Him all day long as I drove around. And let me tell you something my Brother, If you talk to the Lord long enough, you will start hearing Him answer you. You will become sensitive to the awareness of the Spirit. You will have peace in your spirit.

I find myself in disagreement with our well intentioned Brother Deuteronomy, but we do look within ourselves for our fellowship with the Spirit. Scripture says he will come to us and abide with us. He is not external to us, He is with us. We must abide in Him and think about that. We have the same resurrection power in Spirit inside of us right now that raised Jesus from the dead.

Psalm 139:7-8
7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there..../KJV

The Lord and His Spirit are already inside of you. If you are not aware of His presence then something is wrong.

And you can either feel Him or you cant. Do you have peace in your spirit? If you do not then you need the Spirit of God to be leading you. I used to invite the Lord to go to work with me and we'd talk all day between service calls at Customers homes. Where I would leave the Lord in the truck and go in and do the job. Then we'd talk more on the way to the next call.

Until the Lord got tired of being left in the truck so He let me have a problem on a job that would make me ask Him for help, and I sure did ask Him for help and invite Him in to the Customers house to help me! The job all fell into place after that. I wondered why did I ever leave Him in the truck? Did I think it would waste time to invite Him inside? Would it be inappropriate? I don't know what I thought but the job would not tell me what was wrong, lol. I know how to test for shorts and all that stuff and it kept blowing low voltage fuses. And I would test some likely culprits and then tighten wire connections and stuff and everything tested good. So try it again with a fresh fuse, Boom bye bye another fuse. I wound up testing every single wire on that unit and couldnt get it to stop blowing fuses. Actually at one point, I gave up even before I called the Lord in on it. I had to save a couple fuses to work with so I buttoned it up and picked up my tools and was wondering what am I going to tell the customer? I cant guess, I'm supposed to know how to test this stuff and "know" what wrong with it! And I do know how to test that stuff, but not this time and I can't lie so now what? And I started praying, Lord Forgive me for leaving you in the truck. Please come in and help me...I was just finishing up packing up my tools, I had left one more good fuse in it and the high voltage switch off to the unit...as I thought what do I say to my customer, as I pray to my God for help?!

And suddenly the Customer surprises me and is behind me saying wow it's been awhile are you all finished up yet and get it working? ...as he is reaching for the high voltage switch and he flicks it on. I'm watching in horror because I know it'll pop within a second. Except that it doesn't pop the fuse. It lights up real smooth and nice. I didn't even have time to say anything and it lights up and he said, oh good.. (like I did something!) I did not fix that furnace. It was the Lord. So suddenly it was a good idea to invite the Lord inside with me on jobs instead of leaving Him in the truck. Work goes so smooth when you take the Lord with you. You have to look at life spiritually day by day moment by moment.

If anyone cant do that then do you really Believe in God??

So it's really all about developing an sensitivity to the awareness of the Lord. How do you know if the Lord is there? You'll have peace in your spirit-man. That's how I gauge situations that arise. Is my spirit troubled? Time to pray. Do I feel peace? What I'm thinking about that situation is ok. Once you are used to hanging out with the Lord and hearing His still small voice...you can't get rid of Him! He wakes me up. He changes the subject on me. He is vague with me because He like for me to ask Him the details! He has shown a pattern with me, Last Minute, Never Late. Like King David when he stumbled with a man's Wife. David knew he can not get away from God and He was normally led by God and it's for that reason that I believe that David is said to be a man after God's own heart, he didnt run from God, He wrote Psalms to Him instead, lol.

 

[Deuteronomy]

I find myself in disagreement with our well intentioned Brother Deuteronomy, but we do look within ourselves for our fellowship with the Spirit. Scripture says he will come to us and abide with us. He is not external to us, He is with us. We must abide in Him and think about that. We have the same resurrection power in Spirit inside of us right now that raised Jesus from the dead.

Hello @Edward429451 (& @lomarespio), it seems that I may have assumed a general knowledge about something that I should not have, so I apologize for that. I grew up in the 60's & 70's (when ideas from the East, like "mindfulness" and "Transcendental Meditation", etc., were all the rage), and it was a very common thing to hear of/speak of "looking inside yourself to find inner peace" (actually, it seems that little has changed over the years in regard to that idea .. e.g. What does it mean to look inside yourself to find inner peace? at DuckDuckGo).

The thing is, we certainly "meditate" as Christians, but we do so very differently from the world, first and foremost by "filling" our minds (rather than "emptying" them) with thoughts about God .. by "meditating" on His word (and, with a very specific understanding, we can also involve ourselves in the practice of Christian "mindfulness" too).

That all said, what the non-Christian world means when it tells people to "look inside themselves to find inner peace" is to look "to themselves" to find that peace (information at the link I posited above describes what they mean, as well their recommended methods/techniques of how to go about doing that in one's life).

As Christians however, we should never follow the world's advice to look "inside ourselves" or "to ourselves" to find peace, rather, we are to look "outside" of ourselves to God to find peace (which is true no matter where we consider God to be physically located at the time, since He is not us and we are not Him).

Sorry about the long explanation but, hopefully, that helps makes sense of what I was referring to in my last post (about not looking "inside" or "to" ourselves as the source of our peace).

BTW Edward, I loved your real-life explanation of practicing the presence of God in your life by consciously choosing/remembering to take Him with you wherever you go (and by making Him part of everything that you do, too ). Is it not BEYOND amazing that our Creator, the King of the Universe, not only wants us (who are His) to have this kind of close (ongoing/growing, day-by-day/moment-by-moment) relationship with Him, but (for our good) He commands us to do so too, and then tells us how to do so, to boot .. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (see below).

The thing that I'm still hoping to hear back about (from @lomarespio) is whether or not anything has changed in his life, because when he joined CChat back in August, he told us that he is not a Christian/not saved (or, at least, that he is not sure) on the profile that he filled out about himself. So, talking to him about practicing the presence of God in his life and/or the indwelling of the HS seems like a secondary concern (something that should perhaps be put on hold until he updates us about whether he is or still in not, in Christ).

God bless you both!!

~Deuteronomy

1 Thessalonians 5​

16 Rejoice always; ​

17 pray without ceasing; ​

18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ​

.

 

[Edward429451]

Hello @Edward429451 (& @lomarespio), it seems that I may have assumed a general knowledge about something that I should not have, so I apologize for that. I grew up in the 60's & 70's (when ideas from the East, like "mindfulness" and "Transcendental Meditation", etc., were all the rage), and it was a very common thing to hear of/speak of "looking inside yourself to find inner peace" (actually, it seems that little has changed over the years in regard to that idea .. e.g. What does it mean to look inside yourself to find inner peace? at DuckDuckGo).

The thing is, we certainly "meditate" as Christians, but we do so very differently from the world, first and foremost by "filling" our minds (rather than "emptying" them) with thoughts about God .. by "meditating" on His word (and, with a very specific understanding, we can also involve ourselves in the practice of Christian "mindfulness" too).

That all said, what the non-Christian world means when it tells people to "look inside themselves to find inner peace" is to look "to themselves" to find that peace (information at the link I posited above describes what they mean, as well their recommended methods/techniques of how to go about doing that in one's life).

As Christians however, we should never follow the world's advice to look "inside ourselves" or "to ourselves" to find peace, rather, we are to look "outside" of ourselves to God to find peace (which is true no matter where we consider God to be physically located at the time, since He is not us and we are not Him).

Sorry about the long explanation but, hopefully, that helps makes sense of what I was referring to in my last post (about not looking "inside" or "to" ourselves as the source of our peace).

BTW Edward, I loved your real-life explanation of practicing the presence of God in your life by consciously choosing/remembering to take Him with you wherever you go (and by making Him part of everything that you do, too ). Is it not BEYOND amazing that our Creator, the King of the Universe, not only wants us (who are His) to have this kind of close (ongoing/growing, day-by-day/moment-by-moment) relationship with Him, but (for our good) He commands us to do so too, and then tells us how to do so, to boot .. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (see below).

The thing that I'm still hoping to hear back about (from @lomarespio) is whether or not anything has changed in his life, because when he joined CChat back in August, he told us that he is not a Christian/not saved (or, at least, that he is not sure) on the profile that he filled out about himself. So, talking to him about practicing the presence of God in his life and/or the indwelling of the HS seems like a secondary concern (something that should perhaps be put on hold until he updates us about whether he is or still in not, in Christ).

God bless you both!!

~Deuteronomy

1 Thessalonians 5​

16 Rejoice always; ​

17 pray without ceasing; ​

18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ​

.

I remember some of that stuff so we must be kinda close in age. Nowadays you could 100 different people about this stuff and you would get 1000 different answers!.

I remember when the spiritual aspect of life was just sinking in slowly and I said something to a Brother in Christ about seeking the Lord spiritually, and he started telling me not to! Posting that scripture, Acts 19:15-17 where that guy got beat up by an evil spirit. Saying I could accidently call up a demon . I know he was meaning well at the time but even mentioned the word, astral projection...! And boy oh boy was he wrong .

If a man is truly seeking the Lord in his heart well if one thinks about it, that's what the Lord told us to do in scripture, seek the Lord and pray without ceasing, start asking Him stuff. The Lord saysif man is knows how to give good gifts to their children, how much more so the Lord? Seeking the Lord is when we talk to Him. If we ask for a fish will He gives us a serpent? (Luke 11:11-13)

Here's His child seeking the Lord which is what He wants us to do so the Lord isn't going to let us call up a demon when we are seeking Him! And he tells us all this stuff in scripture.

 

[GRACE_ambassador]

...seek the Lord and pray without ceasing, start asking Him stuff...

Precious friend, and Always be thankful no matter the answer?:

"Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is The Will ​

Of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 AV)​

Amen.



Please Be Very Richly Encouraged And Edified
In Christ, And His Precious Word Of Truth.

Amen.

 

[pitcare]

Hello @Edward429451 (& @lomarespio), it seems that I may have assumed a general knowledge about something that I should not have, so I apologize for that. I grew up in the 60's & 70's (when ideas from the East, like "mindfulness" and "Transcendental Meditation", etc., were all the rage), and it was a very common thing to hear of/speak of "looking inside yourself to find inner peace" (actually, it seems that little has changed over the years in regard to that idea .. e.g. What does it mean to look inside yourself to find inner peace? at DuckDuckGo).

The thing is, we certainly "meditate" as Christians, but we do so very differently from the world, first and foremost by "filling" our minds (rather than "emptying" them) with thoughts about God .. by "meditating" on His word (and, with a very specific understanding, we can also involve ourselves in the practice of Christian "mindfulness" too).

That all said, what the non-Christian world means when it tells people to "look inside themselves to find inner peace" is to look "to themselves" to find that peace (information at the link I posited above describes what they mean, as well their recommended methods/techniques of how to go about doing that in one's life).

As Christians however, we should never follow the world's advice to look "inside ourselves" or "to ourselves" to find peace, rather, we are to look "outside" of ourselves to God to find peace (which is true no matter where we consider God to be physically located at the time, since He is not us and we are not Him).

Sorry about the long explanation but, hopefully, that helps makes sense of what I was referring to in my last post (about not looking "inside" or "to" ourselves as the source of our peace).

BTW Edward, I loved your real-life explanation of practicing the presence of God in your life by consciously choosing/remembering to take Him with you wherever you go (and by making Him part of everything that you do, too ). Is it not BEYOND amazing that our Creator, the King of the Universe, not only wants us (who are His) to have this kind of close (ongoing/growing, day-by-day/moment-by-moment) relationship with Him, but (for our good) He commands us to do so too, and then tells us how to do so, to boot .. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (see below).

The thing that I'm still hoping to hear back about (from @lomarespio) is whether or not anything has changed in his life, because when he joined CChat back in August, he told us that he is not a Christian/not saved (or, at least, that he is not sure) on the profile that he filled out about himself. So, talking to him about practicing the presence of God in his life and/or the indwelling of the HS seems like a secondary concern (something that should perhaps be put on hold until he updates us about whether he is or still in not, in Christ).

God bless you both!!

~Deuteronomy

1 Thessalonians 5​

16 Rejoice always; ​

17 pray without ceasing; ​

18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ​

.

Thank you for your wonderful explanation. It is true that we must fill our minds to receive God's abundance in our hearts, rather than emptying our minds. After a long period of insomnia and anxiety in my life, something has changed. Filling my mind with God's words every day has transformed my life.

 

[Deuteronomy]

Thank you for your wonderful explanation. It is true that we must fill our minds to receive God's abundance in our hearts, rather than emptying our minds. After a long period of insomnia and anxiety in my life, something has changed. Filling my mind with God's words every day has transformed my life.

Hello Pitcare, that is wonderful and encouraging news, PTL Thank you for sharing it with us (how God is continuing to work powerfully in your life to sanctify and transform you more and more into the image of His Son, that is .. Philippians 1:6, 2:13)

God bless you!! (Numbers 6:24-26)

~Deuteronomy (David)