Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Nouwen Meditation: Your Heart is the Center of Your Being

Now & Then Podcast
Happy 2023! Our first Henri Nouwen, Now & Then episode of the year features a talk from Henri Nouwen himself, first recorded in 1983. In part two of this series, Henri focuses on the importance of resistance, seeing the way of Jesus as the greatest force of non-violence in the world. In a world marred by war and deep divisions, Henri's message is as timely and meaningful today as ever.

DAILY MEDITATION | JANUARY 3, 2023
Your Heart is the Center of Your Being
In the biblical understanding, our heart is at the center of our being. It’s not a muscle, but a symbol for the very center of our being. Now the beautiful thing about the heart is that the heart is the place where we are most ourselves. It is the very core of our being, the spiritual center of our being. Solitude and silence, for instance, are ways to get to the heart, because the heart is the place where God speaks to us, where we hear the voice that calls us beloved. This is precisely the most intimate place. In the famous story, Elijah was standing in front of the cave. God was not in the storm, God was not in the fire and not in the earthquake, but God was in that soft little voice (see 1 Kings 19: 11–12). That soft little voice ... speaks to the heart. Prayer and solitude are ways to listen to the voice that speaks to our heart, in the center of our being. One of the most amazing things is that if you enter deeper and deeper into that place, you not only meet God, but you meet the whole world there.
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

PROVERBS 4:23 (NIV)
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Monday, January 2, 2023

Nouwen Meditation: Anchor Yourself in God’s Love

Now & Then Podcast
Happy 2023! Our first Henri Nouwen, Now & Then episode of the year features a talk from Henri Nouwen himself, first recorded in 1983. In part two of this series, Henri focuses on the importance of resistance, seeing the way of Jesus as the greatest force of non-violence in the world. In a world marred by war and deep divisions, Henri's message is as timely and meaningful today as ever.

DAILY MEDITATION | JANUARY 2, 2023
Anchor Yourself in God’s Love
When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, he heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). These words revealed the true identity of Jesus as the beloved. Jesus truly heard that voice, and all of his thoughts, words, and actions came forth from his deep knowledge that he was infinitely loved by God. Jesus lived his life from that inner place of love. Although human rejections, jealousies, resentments, and hatred did hurt him deeply, he remained anchored in the love of the Father. At the end of his life, he said to his disciples, “Listen: the time will come— indeed has come already—when you are going to be scattered, each going his own way and leaving me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32).

I know now that the words spoken to Jesus when he was baptized are words spoken also to me and to all who are brothers and sisters of Jesus. My tendencies toward self-rejection and self-deprecation make it hard to hear these words truly and let them descend into the center of my heart. But once I have received these words fully, I am set free from my compulsion to prove myself to the world and can live in it without belonging to it. Once I have accepted the truth that I am God’s beloved child, unconditionally loved, I can be sent into the world to speak and to act as Jesus did.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!

1 JOHN 3:1 (NIV)
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Sunday, January 1, 2023

Nouwen Meditation: A New Beginning!

Now & Then Podcast
Happy 2023! Our first Henri Nouwen, Now & Then episode of the year features a talk from Henri Nouwen himself, first recorded in 1983. In part two of this series, Henri focuses on the importance of resistance, seeing the way of Jesus as the greatest force of non-violence in the world. In a world marred by war and deep divisions, Henri's message is as timely and meaningful today as ever.

DAILY MEDITATION | JANUARY 1, 2023
A New Beginning!
We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine.

Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can! The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: “You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will just be a repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.” There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: “There is nothing new under the sun... don’t let yourself be fooled.”

When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.

So what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: “Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe all the tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone” (Revelation 21:2–5).
Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

REVELATION 22:20b-21 (NIV)
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