Mark 5.21, 25-34 (NLT)~ Today's Scripture

21 Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. ... 25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” 31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

Comments

In Spirit, where spirit, or our True Self, is one with God already, all things are possible to materialize on the level of physicality that agree with the Mind of God.

When we move toward Spirit through intention ~ which is what the New Testament calls faithing ~ the energy of intention is coming from Spirit and drawing us to Spirit. The very intention derives from God and intensifies as we move closer toward Spirit. Separation is dissolving in union with the Word, Christ ~ who is the Center of Creation.

Our Gospel Scripture today shows us a woman who chose to faith. In her mind she agreed with the Mind of God. This led her to reach out to touch the garment of Christ. Divine energy, the Light, flowed from Christ into her. Her ailment was transformed into wholeness.

This is to say her aspiration came from inspiration. Faithing in God arises from grace, or Spirit instilling in us, born from the Center, the will to act in cooperation with God in formation at the material level.

What if the woman had not touched the garment of Christ? She would not have cooperated with the all-potentiality of Christ. She would have continued suffering from living apart from the possibility inhering in the Mind of God.

By reaching out, she was touched. Her touching led to her being touched. This is faithing; this is cooperating with God. This is where our limits connect with the Unlimited, our weakness with All-Potency.

Christ refers to this spiritual process as faithing, using the images of asking, seeking, and knocking. He says this spiritual law is logical, according with a cause-effect logic: we ask, we receive; we seek, we find; we knock, the door opens.

St. James points to how this divine law can be blocked. First, we can choose not to ask. That is, we can choose not to faith. If we do not connect, through inspiration and intention, with the Mind of God, we cut ourselves off from the All-Potency and All-Loving of God. This same law operates at the material level, as when we pull a plug from a plug-in. This law works at all levels of Reality.

St. James points to another cut-off from Divine Inflow. We can intend with impure intent: to satisfy our ego, our personality. This blocks the free flow of manifestation. All spiritual intent is aligned with the good of everyone. The True Self has no sense of self and its blessing or survival apart from others.

The contemplative dimension is just this Center of All-Potency; here is the Mind and Heart of God. The Living, Active Word, the Christ, is from this Ground of Being.

Contemplative practice is seeking not only to enter rest in God but to more efficaciously manifest God at all levels of Nature. Meditation leads toward the Center; the Center leads us back into the world to witness by creativity of life to the divine love, joy, peace, and power inhering in the Center.

Therefore, contemplation leads to empowerment. The meekness of the Spirit is a power-full humbleness, for it connects with the Mind and Efficacy of the Creator.

Contemplation, likewise, purges us of inward passions that pull us from God, seek to draw grace toward self-gratification, and block divine manifestation.

The Will of God, for God being Love, is seeking to manifest all of Who God Is for the blessing of all creatures. God will use anyone who reaches out with intent to say "Yes" to that Divine Purpose for his or her life and the world.

Contemplation comes to return to integrate all forms of prayer in the Purpose of manifesting God. The sole intent, however, is for one to be a willing agent of Grace.

Contemplation works for it connects us with God beyond levels of Reality outside the Center, levels needing grace that arises only from the Word at the Center of Creation.

A difficult transition for the practitioner of contemplation is moving from enjoying the more passive posture that grew through meditation to the more active posture that he or she is called to after learning to live in the Center.

Labyrinths symbolize this movement. The path is designed to lead us progressively to the Center; gradual movement purges and prepares to be ready to receive the Center. This implies that God designed the path that leads to God; we follow it and faith in its wisdom and efficacy. The Center draws to Itself ~ recall that aspiration flows from inspiration.

Next, after spending time in the Center. We walk out toward and into the world. This is cooperation with God to be joining the Center with all life, finding the One Center manifesting in all seen and unseen.

God intends only our good. God intends only our good in consort with the good of all. Our purpose must fit the Purpose of God for everyone and everything. If we reach out, faithing in God true to the Mind of God, God will use us to bless others beyond what we dreamed possible. We will, then, according to spiritual law inhering in God, find that in giving up our selfish interests, we discover ultimate Meaning and a delightful, all-consuming Purpose transcending life and death. This is the Way of Christ.

Reflection

How are you cooperating with God?

What does it mean to be meek?

What, or Who, is the Center?

How does "manifestation" relate to the incarnation of God as Jesus of Nazareth?

Was there anything in the writing today that led to discomfort within you? Explain.Brian will respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Mentor, his speaking, leading classes, workshops, or retreats. See any major on-line bookseller for his book An Ache for Union.

Brian offers retreats, workshops, or classes in such subjects as Contemplative Prayer (he trains in Visualized Praying, Centering Prayer, Christian Meditation, The Jesus Prayer, ...), Contemplative Living, A Spiritual Understanding of the Lord's Prayer, and Spiritual Use of the Scripture.

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