strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God
Flow Description
What if everything you needed today, in this moment, was already yours? What if we really believed that we were beloved children of God and not orphans?
These are the questions we move and breathe through in this gentle yoga practice, a practice designed to cultivate greater awareness of and gratefulness for God’s goodness in our lives.
We dive into the story of the Israelites wandering the desert for 40 years and explore how God provided for their every need every day. In the form of manna and quail from heaven, the Israelites never went hungry. Each morning these provisions were fresh, and God commanded them to only collect what they needed that day – if they tried to hoard up extras for the next day, they rotted overnight.
Julian Green says this: “The story of the manna gathered and set aside by the Hebrews is deeply significant. It so happened that the manna rotted when it was kept. And perhaps this means that all spiritual reading which is not consumed – by prayer and works – ends by causing a sort of rotting inside us. You die with a head full of fine sayings and a perfectly empty heart.”
You see, we aren’t orphans left alone in the wilderness to starve. We are children of God, invited to come to the table and eat every day, every moment, to the full, so that we can be nourished and we can nourish others. Let’s set our gaze on this deep truth as we move and breath on our mats.
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. {Matthew 6:30-34 (MSG)}
Do you trust that God will give you what you need today?
And that he’ll also be there tomorrow?
And the next day?
Regardless of whether you put your time in?
Father, help us remember that we are your children, that we’re not abandoned, we’re not forgotten, we’re not orphans, we’re not strangers walking around on the street picking up nice sayings to put in an empty heart.
Father, we want to be children who are transformed by your love. Children who don’t hoard what you give us, but we let it transform us and then we give it away. We want more of you in our lives and in the world around us. Help us live in the present moment, with our eyes open to what you are doing right here, right now.
Thank you that you are alive and active and moving and that we get to be a part of this. Amen.
