Centered Living

by Bryan Jay Cannon

Everyone copes with life differently. Many of us, however, do not feel we are very successful. But we can be. Having analyzed people who seemed to handle problems well, I have realized they were in touch with some insights that had escaped me. After years of struggling and searching, I discovered what I believe is the Biblical secret. It is a deep and thrilling fulfillment called centered living. If you live centered you will find both the thrill of knowing yourself as the object of divine love and value. 

But you will also discover you are able to cope with problems that destroy others. The further bonus will be the joy of using your gifts and talents to your full potential for yourself and others.

For a start, and most simply said, centering means focusing your awareness on the presence of God. Jesus was at the same time both God's self-focused life and an example for us as to know how we as humans can live focused on the living God. He was consciously aware that, among the choices of life, God was always present as origin, source, and fulfillment of his reason for being. So when temptations came, as happened in the wilderness, catching Jesus weak from a long and lonely desert fast, he remained centered on God. Later in a busy, pushing crowd, midst cries of adulation that he was a great and good man, he was not distracted by pride. He was centered. He simply responded, "There is One who is good, God alone."

Once into ministry, Jesus lived a life under pressure. There were always demands on his time for healing, and he constantly faced resistance to what he was saying and doing, the religious authorities plotting to catch him in a chargeable offense. The road he walked to Jerusalem and a final showdown vibrated with threats, so Jesus went off by himself long before dawn. There, in deep quiet and meditation, he centered himself.

If we think about it, we realize that we alone are responsible for our mental activity. We alone can discipline our mind. But that is not easy. For years I overworked myself as a pastor of congregations with very active programs. My excuse for overwork was that I had a demanding church and there was always more to do than time to do it. At one point, I had heart palpitations so bad that I had to catch my breath. One night my heart went crazy, and by prior arrangement with my doctor, I rushed to the hospital emergency ward for a cardiogram. When I laid down on the bed, it read normal. No explanation was given. No one confronted me with the fact that my body was shouting to me, "Slow down. LIE DOWN! Take it easier."

Behind all of this was a deeper issue that has taken years of struggle, self-evaluation, and some therapy to uncover. I inherited a compulsive-obsessive personality which produced both alcoholics and workaholics in my family. I have had a strong tendency to cram my day with an overtaxing schedule. Then I complained about what life was doing to me. Ultimately, no one could deal with that truth but me. I had to put my obsessiveness under control. I had to learn, as we all do, that I am in charge of my life and I must assume responsibility for all my actions. Twelve Step Programs begin with acknowledging that we admit life is unmanageable and we must surrender our attempts to control to a higher Power. But how do you do that?

A start for me was a decision that led me to biofeedback, which became a breakthrough for me. Biofeedback teaches a person how to have conscious, mental control over unconscious or involuntary physical and psychological processes. This technique taught me to take charge of my brain. Since I had to be quiet to center my thoughts on the presence of God, biofeedback provided the method.

SELF-IMAGE 

In addition to being responsible for our mental activity, we must be aware of our view of ourselves, our self-image. How we feel about ourselves drives our behavior. Most of us are insecure to some degree. We might see this in parents raised in a period of struggle and financial insecurity who now over-indulge their children. Interestingly, the same children might feel abandoned, unloved and insecure because their friends' parents supply yet more toys or cars or spending money, so they feel cheated, devastated, because of what they interpret as lack of love by their own parents. Still, children differ so. The same background which causes one youngster to react as if he were abused might drive another to excel, showing the world he can make it on his own. The one will say he is not loved, and it will become self-fulfilling prophecy. The other will see life as a challenge and claim his power.

In reality, it is not our circumstances but our inner self-image that drives us, which our environment helps form. If we learn to center, we gain a self-understanding that is harmonious with the great commandments to love God and neighbor. And we begin to see the possibilities of a full and happy life which puts everything in proper perspective.

SELF-CENTEREDNESS

In order to live centered, we must understand and confess just how self-centered we are. Have we actually allowed God any room in our day-to-day consciousness? Are we utterly honest about ourselves, acknowledging an obsessive drive for self-gratification, for this is not the exclusive characteristic of teenagers? Self-centeredness, a mark of our culture, wears a thousand faces and is the prime mover in many of our personal lives. They all mask the same alienation from God's own purpose. God created us so that we will worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:4). In order to turn our thinking from an obsessive desire for gratification to celebrate what God created for us to be, we must recognize how much the self occupies our thoughts and drives our behavior. Seeking the Lord's mind prepares us for a centered life.

Sin, out of fashion in many vocabularies today, essentially means missing the mark, the center that God is to occupy. We might not like the word but must face the issue. Have we lived centered on God's will constantly? Most of us live more off than on that focused center. We need to repent, which describes movement away from off-centeredness and all that results from living outside of God's will, and find and do what God desires.

THE SECRET OF LIFE

Now we come to the single most important issue. The most profound truth of the Bible, apart from the revelation that God is loving and just and offers us forgiveness and salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, is this:

We are to possess and have within ourselves the Spirit of God, the One who created and moves the universe. We are to be God-possessed, Spirit-filled! The apostle Paul emphasized this truth to the fledgling first-century church: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?" (1 Cor. 6:19). He wrote in another pastoral letter, to the Colossian church, instructing them "to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints... the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:25-27).

Biblical language talks about having the Lord in our heart. That spatial imagery attempts to personalize the emotional experience of the presence of God. We use the terms "within" and "inner presence" to distinguish these intrapersonal realities from more unconnected events that happen outside of ourselves. At times, I have likened this to breathing. Air exists all around us. When we inhale, we take air into our lungs, and the oxygen is disseminated throughout our bodies by the blood flowing through our arteries. Not only are we in the atmosphere around us, but we also have air within us.

My analogy may be far too simple, but my concern comes from talking to countless people who feel Almighty God is impersonal, removed and distant. I understand such feelings, for when I too have sometimes felt spiritually and emotionally down, God's Spirit seemed far removed, even to the point of feeling abandoned. But most of the time when I am remembering his Spirit's indwelling and concentrating my attention on that Presence within --- centering --- my life takes on new spiritual vigor and balance.

CENTERING IN

Centuries ago, Teresa of Avila also used spatial imagery. Her charming picture was that of a castle. She said each of our lives is like a castle, a sanctuary of the soul. No one can intrude unless given permission. Consider her idea. Right now, you are a sacred castle in which God lives by your invitation. God loves you, just as you are. Visualize in your imagination God present, filling every room. If there are some rooms filled with memories or thoughts that your feel uneasy about co-existing there with your loving God, then visualize the windows of your castle opening for their departure. Off they fly, so that everything within you lives in harmony with God's presence.

Centering is focusing your attention in various ways and at different times on this marvelous presence of God's Spirit residing within us.

Bryan Jay Cannon retired as Senior Pastor at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church in Houston TX. This article is an excerpt from his new book, Sailing Through the Circumstances -- Keys to Coping from the Center Out, which is available from Faith@Work for $15.