We are raised to work harder, strive, stretch, brutalize the flesh and get what we want. Activity, or more accurately, productivity has become a sacred virtue in our culture.
“You must descend from your head into your heart. At present, your thoughts of God are in your head. And God himself is, as it were, outside you, and so your prayer and other spiritual exercises remain exterior. Whilst you are still in your head, thoughts will not easily be subdued but will always be whirling about, like snow in winter or clouds…
Trusting God's hand to lead us, direct us, and complete us can sound pretty spiritual and pretty pious. However, anyone who is in transition can attest these can be very lonely, confusing and often frustrating times. At times, we wonder if we will ever break through, give birth to this new thing God is doing…
It seems we are always looking for heroes, someone to place upon a pedestal and inevitably they fall from the heights we have elevated them! Sometimes it is simply they don't live up to the unrealistic expectations we place upon them but sometimes they fall from the pedestal because of their actions. Recent history is littered with prominent Christian leaders Continue Reading...
This little saying was in my inbox the other morning. It is a snippet from Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, the story about a person named Paul Farmer and his work in Haiti, Peru, Cuba and Russia. Farmer is a physician and medical anthropologist spending his career working to improve healthcare for some of the poorest folks in the world. In Continue Reading...
There is an old story about a fella illustrating the difference between spirituality and religion. He used the picture of a hand pointing to the moon. He said spirituality is the pointing to the moon where religion is more concerned with the hand. How is the hand pointing? What finger is being used? What color is the hand? Is it a male Continue Reading...