Being Mindful

I love watching movies when I can get into them. I am kind of fidgety but when I can settle in to watch a movie I love to because I can always find God speaking to me in them. Take for example the clip below from Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. If you aren’t into it just fast forward to about 2:30 minutes and look for the discussion between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn as they are left alone in the conference room.

If you are completely unfamiliar with the Star Wars universe, these are Jedi Knights and they are characters that seek after self discipline and they are the assigned keepers of peace and justice in the galaxy. Something struck me when watching their interaction here. Obi-Wan is troubled by something far away from where they are and expresses it to his elder, Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon tells him to be aware of the here and now. He reminds him to ‘…be mindful of the living force…’. When I watch this scene I can imagine a similar discussion between two believers of God who are trying to discern God’s intentions in an urgent moment. It might sound a little more like, ‘be mindful of the Holy Spirit…’ Wow, that is really cool. But is it just my sci fi loving imagination at work?

Consider Acts 8:26 when you watch this scene. In this part of Acts Philip is told by an angel of the Lord to ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So Philip has a pretty clear order to do so and heads that way. But that isn’t the part that strikes me, more so the part where we read that ‘The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”‘ in verse 29. At this stage of the game Philip can’t afford to be out there wandering around worrying about what he is supposed to be doing. He can’t be concerned about whether he packed enough water or how much he is tired of walking. He must have an open ear because he knows that he is being led by God. He is being mindful of the Holy Spirit at that moment and not worrying about the rest of it. In his obedience to the urging of the Spirit he enters into a dialogue with the Ethiopian and from that point the Ethiopian’s life is forever changed.

This application has been rattling around in my head for a little over a week now. Last week we went to a multiplication conference with the National Office of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. There I sat in on a talk by Mike Phillips who was speaking about prayer. He stressed the importance of prayer in our lives as church planters and the need for people around us that are constantly in prayer. He talked about the need to seek how God would have us pray rather than just rattling off what we think we want to pray about. He told us about having small groups of people that pray together and will sit in silence waiting for the Spirit to guide how they pray. They are focused on being mindful of the Holy Spirit. Mike likes to emphasize the importance of being sensitive to how God would have us pray by the leading of the Spirit. I couldn’t agree more.

So how are you praying lately? How are you listening to God? Do you sit down and start the laundry list or do you start your prayer in silence waiting for God to give you direction? Are you being mindful of the Living Force? He is speaking to you, He is speaking to me. It is in listening to Him where we become effective in the words we speak, the actions we take and the decisions we make. So when you wake up tomorrow morning, be silent and see if the Creator of the universe has something to show you.