Bible.com.au: Reading Plan - Christ-Centred Mindfulness: Still and Breathe

Reflection*

This Christ-centred mindfulness exercise encourages you to let go of the pain.

After reading the Bible passage for today, close your eyes and sit comfortably in a chair. Bring to mind something that you have been struggling with lately. As you think about this problem, notice all the thoughts and feelings that come into your mind. Think about how this problem is impacting your life — how it has already influenced your past and how it might change the future. Where in your body do you feel most upset when you notice this emotional pain? What does it feel like?

God is always with us. He said he would never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). Imagine he is physically with you now. Imagine he is placing his hand on your pain. If it helps you in this exercise, you might like to place your hand on the place of pain as if it were the Lord’s hand comforting you. Imagine that as his hand rests on your pain, there is a warmth that comes from his love, and the place that hurts is softening around the pain. It is like the pain is lessening its hold on you, and his love is allowing you to make room for it.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39, NRSV.

A short contemplative exercise and time for prayer

Sit with this exercise for as long as it is helpful. Ask God to help you with this problem, and prayerfully surrender it to him. Trust that God can help you carry this burden and sustain you. Reflect on a Bible passage that is encouraging to you, such as Romans 8:35-39, that speaks about God’s love.

*In this series, each day’s devotion will be structured a little differently than our usual Daily Bible devotions, as Dr Thompson offers a Bible passage for reflection, and teaches us practical contemplative exercises that can assist with finding peace when everything around us seems difficult and hopeless.

2 Timothy 1:1-18

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

2To Timothy, my dear son:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanksgiving

3I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

Appeal for Loyalty to Paul and the Gospel

6For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

13What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

Examples of Disloyalty and Loyalty

15You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

16May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

Christ-Centred Mindfulness: Still and Breathe

Day 3 of 14

NIV

2 Timothy 1:7

Days

2 Timothy 1:1-18