Holy Noticing: How A Christian Can Practice Mindfulness Sample

Environment: Become aware of your current surroundings, including sights, sounds, smells, and God’s creation

A lifestyle of holy noticing can help us pay better attention in our relationships, our work life, and in our spiritual disciplines such as prayer and Bible reading.   In this day's practice, the E in the Breathe model, becoming more aware  of your current surroundings, including God’s creation, will hone those attentional skills.

Scripture devotes a great deal to the topic of attention. The New Testament writers use the Greek word for attention, prosecho, several times (for example, see 2 Pet. 1:19). The writer of Hebrews uses the word when he admonishes us to, “pay more careful attention” to the prophets and the words of Jesus (Heb. 2:1). The word literally means to turn your mind toward something. 

Unfortunately, paying attention is not automatic. Jesus knew this and often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt: 11:15, Mark 4:9). He wasn’t contrasting those who had physical ears to someone who might not. Rather, he was challenging his hearer to pay deep attention to what He was saying. 

In this practice you will learn to hone your noticing ability by attending more directly to your senses. Although this practice in the BREATHe model focuses on sight and sound, this skill can involve all of your senses. 

It might mean listening more deeply to the sounds around you during your devotional time. It might involve noticing something new about the flowers in the potted plant on the window sill. It might include paying more attention to how the cover of your Bible feels or to the texture of its onion skin paper. You may even give greater attention to faint smells you’ve taken for granted – the smell of morning coffee or the crispness of a fall morning. You can even apply this skill to your sense of taste – more deeply noticing your bagel’s nutty flavor or the soft, sweet taste a bite of banana leaves on your tongue.

Get in a quiet place and listen deeply to the sounds you hear. Is it the air conditioning, the clock, the wind outside (or the wind blowing in the trees if you are outside), birds chirping, stirrings of your family members in your home, your tinnitus? 

Listen for whatever comes your way.

Catch yourself if you begin to add commentary and refocus on the sound. 

Just listen to the tone, timber, beat, etc. of the sounds. Remember, you are strengthening your attentional muscles with this skill.

You may want to then try focused observation. 

Open your eyes and focus on an object you've not focused on before, such as the flower in the window sill, the lampshade, the sofa, familiar objects you may have taken for granted. What new things do you notice that you’ve never seen before? Is it a color, a pattern, or an unusual aspect of that object? 

If you are at a window or outside, let your attention lightly fall on a tree branch, a leaf, a flower petal, or something else in nature. Notice its shape, color, size, uniqueness.

Revel in God’s creation. 

Try to simply notice and thank God without adding commentary.