Mystical means real. It is the intimate quality of the spiritual life.
~Henri J. M. Nouwen
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, …
being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~ G_d, through paul, the Least of The Apostles in Ephesians 2
Oh beloved, it is true. G_d already sees us for who we are. He lives in eternity. All is now to the One who made and uses time as He alone sees fit. And because He sees us this way, this is the way we are becoming as though walking down a path off of which we cannot fall.
He sees us as complete. He sees us as pure. He sees us as real and new and good and right and true. Oh, the near god-like power of our wills can sometimes emerge and trick us into believing we are just still fallen wrecks. But we know it is not true.
Can we see it friends? There is within us, Him. And He is at work to complete in us the work that He has (and only He could) began(in). We are headed in the right direction and we cannot fail to have the victory He (and we) desire(s) in us, if we but yield to the working of Him in and through us.
So, fear and anxiety are against the rules. It is not that God is taking away our right to be concerned about issues. Rather it is that fears and anxieties create a world where the only things that exist are myself and the threat to the thing or person I am anxious about. And this dynamic functionally becomes atheism in our lives. We take God out of the equation and become unable to fix the problem about which we are worrying. God is actually helping us overcome problems by telling us not to worry about them.
So, these mystical ideas about yielding to His Spirit in our lives are not simply foggy notions about some ghost knocking around our house. They are most practical. A mystic sees that eternity is the focus and He is the Subject and Source of it all.
Anyone for a little practical mysticism tonight?!
