Spiritual Practice
The disciplines which connect us to God.
Related topics: Christian Music, Creativity and Art, For Reflection, Life of Worship
LATEST POSTS
lament: a perspective on sadness in the bible
Wanna know something that drives me crazy? Happiness. Not all happiness. I’m very pro-happiness. I just don’t like fake happiness. You know, the kind people show you at church when you ask them how they’re doing. People put on the smile, and tell you, “I’m doing...
on re-learning how to pray
Sitting there in the darkened room while the book study DVD rolled on the screen to my right, I experienced the most jarring realization. We've been doing it all wrong. Since my children were babies, we've practiced the folding of hands for prayers--tucking...
lessons mom never shared
Storm clouds roll in thick, billowy and dark, blowing small branches and leaves across the field of wildflowers where butterflies make their habitat, laying flat the flowers and thicket on which they find their life and breath. One butterfly frail and tattered lays...
when our prayers don’t add up
“The words started out comforting enough,” Cheryl told me. “My friend told me how sorry she was that I’d lost my job. But then she proceeded to tell me that I must be praying wrong. And that if I was praying in faith and trusting God to provide for us, I’d have a...
crystal blue persuasion
Grace has brought a blue-topped spiral notebook as well as two big containers—one of markers, one of crayons. She’s drawn a yellow sun in the left corner, and I smile because the prelude was called “Sun of my Soul.” We missed the prelude. “Be sure to put the top...
for when you’re really scared
Have you ever been scared? Not just a little scared or just said that you were scared to death of something, but really scared. The kind of scared where you're genuinely afraid for your life? I have. I was a young guy, about 17 years old and in my junior year of...
once upon a time there were three bears. or just one.
Sometimes ordinary moms turns into mama-bears. Just threaten our children and watch us craze. On the upper doorposts of the rooms that hold our family, or that held our family before kids grew up and left, yet still hold one more kid, there are mama-bear tracks....
complete in Him
She stands on the thin, white carpet, anxiously waiting to salute the judges and begin a routine she has undoubtedly practiced well over a thousand times. She seems stiff, a fleshly statue under an enormous amount of stress and I find myself hoping she won't...
reflections from a waiting room
Her name tag reads “Colleen.” She wears blue scrubs, and the embroidered patch on her shirt reads “Eye Surgery…Something.” She sits still, bent to the side a tad with right elbow leaning on the chair arm, palm on cheek. She’s crossed right knee over left and...
the silence and the tears
I’ve long been impressed by the power of the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept.” – John 11:35 The verse has been in many sermons over the years. Every time I’ve heard the verse used it was in the context of showing Jesus’ humanity and that it shows He knew...
got manna?
God has some wild imagination. Just picture those hapless Israelites, out whining in the wilderness about what’s for dinner. In comes the Provider, sprinkles some wafer-honey-like-matter all over their neighborhood, calls it “manna,” and tells them to gather away....
why you should meditate
The streetlamp outside the bedroom window casts a gentle glow about the room and I look at the way the light recedes; a bright halo, then soft light, then near darkness. I focus on the light, the way it moves into the darkness and is swallowed and I try, too, to...
for when your to-do list looms large
I brew a cup of Darjeeling, then slather a toasted sourdough English muffin with butter. I spoon on some homemade strawberry freezer jam, enough to drip down my chin when I take a bite. The white wooden porch swing hangs from rusted chains and creak-squeaks as I...