Swimming in God

Sitting quietly this morning, medidating on Psalm 41:6 -- "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble..." -- something occured to me. Everything...everything I think, say, and do....is thought, spoken, and done in the context of God. That sounds simplistic. But it's not, really! It's HUGE!
He is my refuge (around me, protecting me), my strength (surging up from deep within me), and a very present help (near me, as a friend, to assist and encourage and love). Every word that comes out of my mouth originates from, is formed in, and goes tumbling out into a sea of God's presence. Every thought. Every little motion of my body.

I've been playing around with Laubach's Game with Minutes, training my mind to settle more continually in God's presence. I have found it helpful today to remind myself as I type out emails, answer phone calls, trudge through tasks in Photoshop....that all is done in the context of God. Swimming in God. That gives all deeper meaning to the workd of the song: "In him we live and move and have our being..."

What to do with a lazy mind?

"I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person.."

I don't know how often or for how long I turn my thoughts to God during an "average day," but I do know that the last two days I have done so even less. A lot of things going on and I guess my assumption is that I must be fully absorbed in all that's going on in order to deal with it effectively. But in Laubach's experience, the more effort he poured into this Game, the easier every other "outside" activity became. But it's hard work to change habitual patterns of thought. And I find that I am, like Laubach, "perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person..." I seem to lack the ability to articulate my thoughts or the small, seemingly insignificant things of my life in clear and creative ways. I envy those who can. What seems to come so naturally to them takes so much effort for me. But I feel this is a hurdle that I can overcome. Laubach's words are so fitting....

" The experiment which I am trying is the most strenuous discipline which any man ever attempted. I am not succeeding in keeping God in my mind very many hours of the day...
...The moment I turn to Him it is like turning on an electric current which I feel through my whole being. I find also that the effort to keep God in my mind does something to my mind which every mind needs to have done to it. I am given something difficult enough to keep my mind with a keen edge. The constant temptation of every man is to allow his mind to grow old and lose its edge. I feel that I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person, and I require the very mental discipline which this constant effort affords."

(Frank Laubach, June 15, 1930 - Letters by a Modern Mystic)