Integrative Reading

The experience of abounding peace and freedom is not something the world can offer humanity. We live in a world of chaos, stress, confusion, strife, and pursuits with no ultimate satisfaction. Freedom is not established by power but by sacrifice and love demonstrated by our sovereign God through Jesus Christ the Messiah. Life with God through the prophesied and historically resurrected Anointed One Jesus Christ is wrapped up with peace and freedom.

Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer (a conversation with God) and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Your sovereign God will exchange your earthly stress for His partnering Divine peace. We know this earthly life has its tribulations, but God offers His incomprehensible peace through His Spirit when we have a relationship with Jesus who conquered death. Worry and fear dissolve in God’s overcoming peace.  

Isaiah 26:3 says, “You (God) keep him in perfect peace whose MIND is stayed on You because he trusts in You.”  Trust is integrating with God your secure Partner. Yes, the world will have its troubles, but those who trust in God will have His peace.

To experience freedom is to “bury our old life” in Christ’s death and accept our new identity in Christ by “putting on” the risen partnership of Jesus our Lord (2 Peter 1:3-11). We can now live in Christ without the chains of the past. 

The past is buried in the baptism of Christ, and we are now offered freedom by uniting with Christ our Champion over the broken past. We can now live in the newness of Christ’s strength, love, and grace by walking (integrated) with God the Spirit. Let your day be marked with an integrated partnership with the God of peace and freedom by neurologically replacing, rewiring, and reframing the Mind, Brain, and Body on God’s love and truth that heals.

Prayerful Meditation

Meditate on aligning your understanding of true peace and freedom with your relationship in Christ, His Words, and your partnership with the Holy Spirit.

• “Peace, I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  John 14:27

• “I (Jesus) have said, these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world, you will have tribulation.  But take heart, I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33

• “You keep him in perfect peace whose MIND is stayed in You because he trusts in You.”  Isaiah 26:3

• “Do you not know that all of us who have been buried into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”   Romans 6:3-4

• “And by Him (Christ) everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by (self-works) the law of Moses.”  Acts 13:39
  

What feels too dark and too powerful to gain freedom from?  What is causing you stress and loss of peace? Confess it to God.

• “Cast all your anxieties on Him (Christ), because He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:6-7

• “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:6-7

• “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things, there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22-23

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Ask God to help reveal this new identity and newness of life to your mind and soul. Spend time aligning with God's heart of peace and freedom. Experience His “Love.”

Integrative Reading

This exercise is about opening our Mind/Heart to trust God and be led by His loving and healing presence. It is about trusting in God’s infinite love, leadership, and partnering with His resources to live well. 

Exodus 13:21-22 points to God’s faithfulness and daily supply saying, “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.” 

Despite our human weakness, waywardness, and lack of faith in God’s love and goodness—God has from “The Beginning” always been faithful and He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to lead us by day and by night by trusting in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

When we trust and relationally follow after God in Mindful integration to the completed work of Jesus, we have access to the Holy Spirit as our “pillar of fire and pillar of cloud” both day and night. 

To discover God’s full abundance in His wise leadership we must first acknowledge Him.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” 

The second step for resting in the relational pillar of God’s presence is asking God for His superior counsel and leadership. Isaiah 58:11 says, “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in sacred places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

Lastly, following God’s guiding presence is the most incredible gift of life, as Proverbs 3:13-18 says, “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed. “

However, this abundant life cannot be experienced without following God’s wise guidance through the Holy Spirit—for James 1:22-25 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Prayerful Meditation

Meditate on God’s desire and His ability to counsel your heart in love and wholeness. 

• Exodus 13:21-22— “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.  The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.” 

• Isaiah 58:11— “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in sacred places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

• Jeremiah 33:3— “Call to Me and I will answer you, and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
  

Now meditate on God’s counsel for your life.  Train your Mind to trust in God’s wisdom, which is greater than your own.

• Proverbs 3:13-18— “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold.  She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.  Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.  Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.  She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed. “

• Isaiah 58:11— “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in sacred places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
  

Lastly, ask the Spirit for wisdom in following God’s guidance for life.  This is a step in integrating with the Mind of Christ, feeling God’s presence, and waiting on His perfect timing and supply.

• Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

• James 1:5— “If any of you lacks wisdom. let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

Integrative Reading

God has eternally related in “love.” Love is a permanent and prominent nature between God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. This is the image-bearing nature He offered mankind (Genesis 1:27, 2:21-24)—to love and be united in “oneness.”  Meditatively praying with the Holy Spirit is a gift from God to help complete our new nature in a relational partnership with God Himself.

Praying with God is our connection to God’s heart of love, His empowerment, and His source of abundant life. Jesus announced that He would send the Holy Spirit to be our Guide and Helper. Jude 1:20-21 speaks of this empowerment and life saying, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” 

Praying in partnership with the Holy Spirit is critical to discern God’s perfect will. Matthew 21:22 says, “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Naturally, prayer asked in the Name and manner of Christ Jesus is asking according to the Father’s will, not by human self-centeredness. And to acquire that mindset Romans 10:17 instructs us to remember that knowing the Father’s will is, a “faith coming from hearing, and hearing through the words of Christ.”   

Hearing Scripture guided by the Spirit builds our faith.   

Romans 8:26 teaches us that human prayers alone are weak, so the Spirit is our guide saying, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”  

The Holy Spirit is our Helper to walk the abundant life of prayer. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is mankind’s gift to enter into a growing integrated relational life similar to Jesus Christ and God the Father. This is the heart of “oneness” that the Father is seeking from us—reflecting the nature of our eternal Trinitarian God.

Prayerful Mediation

Meditate on the Holy Spirit’s desire to help you pray in union with the Father.  Meditate on Jude 1:20-21, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” and on Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with the knowledge of God’s will so you will desire what God desires.

Spend time praying in line with what the Spirit reveals to you.  Rest in God’s assuring love for you.  Pray for God’s perfect will for you.  Matthew 21:22 says, “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith.”  In the mindset of Romans 10:17, “faith coming from hearing, and hearing through the words of Christ.” 

Integrative Reading

Meditation and Solitude are two essential means for “paying attention” to our internal and external signals of life. This is the action and exercise of The Wheel of Awareness and I-C-A-R-E found in Fully Alive and Renewed worksheets. These two elements are also “spiritual disciples” for building our mental muscles, our new healthy neuro-pathways, to withstand the storms of life. 

The Mind/Soul works like a “flower” in the desert—it requires water and nutrients to produce life-giving abundance. Meditation helps us stay aware of God’s presence and attuned to His available grace for healthy integrative living. Meditation and solitude supply an open door to hear the Voice of God. We live in a world starved for God’s friendship and support for life.   

Even Jesus, who came from heaven and clothed Himself with flesh (John 1:14)—demonstrates the human process of living aligned and attached in unity with God the Father. 

Mark 1:35, tells us that Jesus, “rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark… departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed.”  Jesus practiced integration with God the Father. Most of us have learned to live starved for meditation and solitude. Meditation and solitude create room for God to speak into our Mind/Soul.  

God supplies a flow of power and information through a mirroring process of two minds/hearts building our neuro-faith with spiritual water and nutrition. Meditation is listening, sensing, and partnering with the life and light of Christ. In Christ, we replace, rewire, and reframe a new neurological mindset with the overcoming flow of life from Christ.

The practice of Christ-partnership in meditation is at its core ruminating on God’s Word and having the Holy Spirit speak directly to our mind/heart. Ruminating is like Lamentations 3:22, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.”  Meditation and solitude with God surpass our stormy circumstances of life, as we yoke ourselves with Christ (Matthew 11:28-30).   

Meditation is mulling over the loving character of God, which gives us hope. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the (presence) of (God-haters), nor sits in the seats of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.” 

Give yourself some uninterrupted time free from distraction. Be patient with yourself and with God. God's actions are often like a Teacher giving a test—He is silent watching for the genuineness of your choices.

Prayerful Meditation

Find a place free from distraction and ask God to meet with you.

Spend a few minutes simply resting with God in solitude.

• “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, there He prayed.  Mark 1:35
  

Choose a verse or character of God to meditate upon.

Make space to hear God speak from His Word.

• “I will meditate on Your precepts and fix my eyes on Your ways.”  Psalm 119:15

• “Be still and know that I am God.”   Psalm 46:10

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Journal your experience and whatever you discovered or heard from God.  Apply it to your life.  This is the mirroring process between two souls/minds forming a secure attachment.

Attachment styles are the primary tool that humans use in all their relationships.

Attachments are shaped by our childhood experiences. They are expressed in adulthood as either 1) Secure or 2) Insecure (Avoidant, Fearful, or Anxious). Our brain is not fully functional until 25-30 years of age; therefore, an individual’s relational mental roadmap is already formed for navigating life either positively or negatively.

Often a person has been exposed to many unmet “love needs” which develop into an unhealthy insecure attachment. A “false identity or a distortedIdentity” is developed forming one of three insecure attachments: Fearful, Dismissive/Avoidant, and Anxious.

Neuroscience research has revealed that the unmet love needs, caused by the absence of “love and truth” to distort the Mind into “keeping a toxified neuro-fiber score” disrupting the Brain and Body. This insecure Brain functions as a “Negative Default Mode Network.”

Without a Secure Relational Attachment to mirror loving bonding and boundaries our memories of the past will repeatedly default into old corrupted neuro-patterns. Trauma and pain distort the Mind-Brain and seed the memory banks to negatively predict the present and future. These become pathways to various cognitive distortions unless we replace, rewire, and reframe new healthy and secure neuro-pathways.

When people enter into building or maintaining a relationship, any unmet love and truth needs that get triggered will erupt into new reinforcing Negative Default Mode Network responses which hinder healthy relationship building. These represent approximately 80% of couple conflicts. The quest for relationship building is surrounded by the following questions:

1. If I call out to you… Will you be there for me?

2. Can I count on you?

3. Do I matter to you?

4. Will you authentically love me and work to know me for a Win-Win in this relationship?

Meeting these love needs forms healthy bonding and boundaries that heal the Mind.  Unmet love needs must be examined by both parties and corrected to heal old broken memories and establish healthy ones.

The human experience is a life mixture of blessings, confusion, intense emotional grief, loss, trauma, and suffering.  

In moments of pain, our second response to hurt is the natural response of mourning, but this is a CHOICE.  Storms of life are not things that will go away—they are journeys that often emerge like waves; however, by a relational choice, they can run out of energy.  

Multiple emotions are involved in our losses, like sadness, fear, emptiness, anger, apathy, guilt, bitterness, and helplessness, but eventually, growth, peace, rest, and love are possible.

Loss leads to grief and pain. We often fight back with denial and anger to deflect the pain, but this only delays our recovery.  

When we lose someone, relational gaps are created in our lives. This loss puts a distance and confusion in our Minds. Our emotions may come like reoccurring waves of an ocean.   Mental distortions can creep in. Our behaviors change.

You may cry out in protest, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46). Your Mind (soul) may experience fear and anxiety, feelings of abandonment, the drift of your soul, and a loss of identity.  

However, in Psalm 73:23, God reminds our hearts by saying, “…I am always with you; you take hold of My right hand.” God is encouraging us to regain rest, peace, and joy by partnering life’s journey with His supply of Divine love and care. The answers to our grief are three-fold:

1. To express our feelings of loss, and invite friends to walk with us.  The greatest of friends is our Ultimate Secure Relationship with God whose friendship flows with His Divine Love, Community, and healing care.

2. To express your protest at the loss.  Even Jesus expressed weeping at the grave of Lazarus before He raised him from the dead.  This gives us hope.

3. Grief is a new way to experience the God of comfort.

The underlying issue of all trauma, violence, loss, pain, and suffering is the result of relational separation caused by evil. Evil produces pain and suffering. Evil and suffering go hand and hand. However, originally, in Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that He had made and it was good” – at that time there was no evil and suffering until creation was altered by evil’s deception.

We see in Romans 1:20, that evil came from mankind observing and desiring the material world vs. supremely desiring Life’s Source, God, and separating themselves from Him. This separation between God and mankind caused the relational and intelligible brain to disrupt, disorient, and disintegrate—no longer functioning as a complete whole. Trauma ensued—we felt fear and shame, and we hid from God.  This was humanity's first LOSS, which brought pain and suffering, and continues as an evil social contagion to the Mind.

Suffering represents our relational struggle. Wholeness is absent. Pain is present. Evil wants us isolated and alone in fear while the love of God is extended as an antidote for hope in healing the mind, emotions, body, and soul. God offers redemption to the human heart and minds through a relational partnership of love and care—a major attribute of God’s nature.

Our greatest recovery is “Relational Hope” in God Himself as He guides humanity collectively to renew the mind and soul. The essence of working with grief, pain, and suffering is about bearing witness to each other’s story and entering into the heart of God about the evil they experienced. This is the purpose of God the Father sending Jesus Christ to help us bear the weight of our loss, grief, and suffering.

The prophetic fulfillment of the life of Jesus and the wounds He bore for us at the Cross are our empirical historical evidence that God has always loved, cared for, and supplied our ULTIMATE SECURE RELATIONSHIP. The victory of Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of a new hope, a new identity, and a power to overcome evil and suffering.  

God came to fearing, shame-filled, and hiding Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8-9) just as He comes to us today to help us get out of pain and suffering. Rather than remain in the anguish of loss and suffering with a “divided mind (heart)” we can respond to our memories in four ways:

1. Talk is necessary for recovery.  SHARE your story and give a place for caring again through a trusted secure friend, or counselor, if needed.  Share your grief and tears.  The path of pain removal takes time.  God came in Jesus Christ to share in our story.

2. This phase involves relationships.   RELATIONSHIPS need to be heard to release the darkness and connect our Minds with another Person (God and other people).

3. Work and Purpose. Everyone was designed to create and produce “good,” which gives us dignity, honor, and respect.  Work connects us to life and quicker recovery.  

4. FAITH.   Trauma, loss, and pain disrupt and toxify the Mind attempting to switch off FAITH.  

For this reason, Paying Attention to our Mind through exercises like the Wheel of Awareness and I-CARE helps us tune into our Five Senses, Brain, Body, and Relationships to see Reality and be heard, seen, soothed, feel safe, and secure.

God has promised to make all things new—Standing at the door of your mind knocking!  

(For more detail on the Wheel of Awareness and I-CARE see the FAR worksheet and exercises.)