Belovedness
Beloved.
I’ve been sitting in prayer with this word, this idea, this fundamental, true-before-anything-else reality for weeks now.
Back in August, Bryan and I started the Ignatian Exercises, a nine-month journey of prayer that’s meant to be a retreat in daily life. It’s a journey that’s been practices for hundreds of years by followers of Jesus, and the first few weeks (depending on which version you’re using) invite you to sit with your belovedness in Christ Jesus. To soak in it. To wrestle with it. To wonder about it. To let God pierce and wreck and heal and beckon and restore your heart with it.
What if Your Spouse was a Catalyst in Your Walk with God?
A.W. Tozer played an enormous role in my early formation. I was encouraged by multiple people to read The Pursuit of God and Knowledge of the Holy when I was in high school and at the beginning of my intentional pursuit of Him. I didn’t understand half of those books at the time, but I wanted what Tozer articulated. Tozer was held out in my church and youth group circles as a model of what could be and someone to emulate. More than the content, though, his books made me want to pray.
I was a little jarred a few years later when I began working for the Christian and Missionary Alliance and met people who didn’t like Tozer. But Tozer was part of the C&MA, and one of their posterchildren. How could someone in the denomination not like him?, I wondered. I came to learn that he wasn’t a very attentive or present husband and father…I’ve held this question recently: What if there was a real ceiling on Tozer’s depth with God because he excluded his family? He may have had a deeper relationship with God than most have had throughout history, but what if he could have experienced even more of God? What would have happened if he had seen his wife and family as a help in his pursuit instead of a hindrance?
Spiritual Formation in Marriage
What if your spouse was your best companion in your journey with Christ?
Being Seen
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24–26 NIV)
I have always loved this blessing. I often use it as a benediction at the end of worship services and in devotional material. I really enjoy the song that was released based on Numbers 6 at the beginning of the pandemic. Recently, though, it has taken on new meaning as I am relearning the power of being seen.
The Slow, Subtle Work of the Holy Spirit
*This is a repost of a journal article we wrote together a few years ago, when we were living in Northern California. The journal is no longer active, so as we approach Pentecost, we want to share it with you!
I bow my head and invite the Holy Spirit to fill me afresh. “Come Holy Spirit, come. Guide me as I review my day, noting the places where you’ve been at work. Give me eyes to see you in moments I wasn’t paying attention. May I give them back to you in simplicity and gratitude.”
This is how we usually begin the prayer of Examen. This prayer practice became especially significant in separate seasons of transition, uncertainty, and aimlessness—seasons in which we each needed the healing salve of the Holy Spirit’s presence.
The Formation of Motherhood
The house is currently quiet, with Bryan working upstairs in our home office while I work at the dining room table. Eva is taking her morning nap, but even as I type, I'm very aware that she could wake up at any moment.
So what do I do with this precious time, while my little one rests? Do I work? Write? Spend time in prayer? Read a book? Do some laundry, prep lunch, make a grocery list...? Or do I mindlessly scroll Instagram in an attempt to assuage my monkey brain/exhaustion/desire for connection, and feel instead the pangs of guilt or jealousy or longing or ...?
Centering Prayer: Loving Attentiveness to God
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and in the midst of that conversation, our attention turned to the practice of silence, or in some traditions, the specific practice of centering prayer.
There has been a lot of conversation about the benefits of silence and centering prayer, leading to the affirmation of pushing through the initial discomforts with such a practice. Neuroscience has affirmed these benefits on a physiological level. Many counselors have expressed the benefits they have seen in clients. I have felt those benefits myself. And to be sure, a part of me gets very excited to see the broad personal benefits that silence and centering prayer has on people.
Why You Should Read (or Re-Read) Tozer’s The Pursuit of God
This week, I (Bryan) thought it'd be fun to do a deep dive into one of my favorite and most influential reads: A.W. Tozer's The Purusit of God. Tozer wrote this classic work to stir believers toward an ever deepening intimacy and life with God. His words not only resonated when he wrote them nearly 70 years ago, but feel more and more prophetic for our day and age.
Practicing Hope
A few weeks ago I was in a session with my own spiritual director, and we talked about hope. I’ve had quite the back-and-forth with hope over the last few years, as Bryan and I walked through more than three years of infertility. I’ve described hope as stubborn, something that just won’t quit or let go of me, even when despair was lurking nearby. And there were certainly moments of despair. Somehow though, even when it felt impossible, I held onto the stubborn hope that someday we’d have children of our own.
After my spiritual direction session ended, I walked away with this question: How exactly do I actually practice hope? What does it look like to live out hope in daily moments? I’ve been pondering these questions for a few weeks, and I thought I’d share some ways that the Lord has helped me to put hope to practice. Clinging to and living out our hope feels like something we all could use right now.
Lament as Praise
Grief has been a topic gaining significant traction this year, and for good reason. We’ve faced constant change in every sphere of our lives, and we’ve been hit with a tidal wave of things to grieve, be they big or small, concrete or more difficult to define and articulate. When the world takes a much different--and in many ways a traumatic, tragic, disrupting--direction than we expected, how are we to respond? How do we cry out to God when we feel powerless?
I have found myself grieving the loss of normalcy and a sense of certainty, and there’s a heavy feeling of powerlessness that follows. I may not have actually possessed any more control before, but it’s all the more apparent how very little control I actually do have. And while it’s a good thing to recognize that only God is in control, there is still a grieving process in shedding the false notion of my own sense of control.
And then, things that we have already been grieving may be intensified in this season.
Praying the Words of Others
Even as a spiritual director and leader of a spiritual formation ministry, I’ve struggled to find a rhythm of prayer and time with God these last couple of months. Not only that, but I’ve struggled to find my own words in prayer. As a writer and a lover of words, it’s been an odd experience.
I shared a few weeks ago about the practice of breath prayer, which I’ve held onto throughout our season of being sheltered in place. Another prayer practice I’ve found helpful in recent weeks has been praying the prayers of others.
I’ve been amazed at the beautiful prayers penned by friends and shared via social media. They’ve brought comfort, peace, and articulation to my experience that I didn’t even know I needed. (Thank you, Sarah Bourns, for your poem “We’ve All Been Exposed,” and all the other prayers you’ve shared!)
Breath Prayer: For When You Don’t Have Many Words
As we continue to journey through varying degrees of social distancing, sheltering in place, quarantining, and hunkering down at home, I wanted to offer a prayer practice that may be helpful.
I have to admit that prayer has been a bit off for me the last few weeks. I just haven’t quite been able to find the words, and there have been some moments when God has felt very far away. Aside from intercession and praying for others, the easiest forms of prayer lately have been the Lord’s Prayer, those written by others (there are some beautiful prayers being shared via social media right now, aren’t there?), and breath prayer.
10 Daily Practices That Are Helping Me to Stay Grounded
As I’ve talked with friends, family, and those we are caring for in this season, I’ve realized that we’re all making some unique discoveries about ourselves, our faith, and our priorities in these uncertain times.
Working from home or being laid off, trying to give our kids structure and at-home education, making more meals at home and getting creative with what we have available, college kids having to come home to finish their semester online, sanitizing and hand-washing, working essential jobs that place us in harm’s way, new grocery store protocol, stressing about loved ones getting sick or fears about our national and global economy have forced us to redefine our day-to-day.
But we’ve also had to confront grief, anxiety, trauma, fear, loneliness, and lack of resources. Our sense of security and control (most of which has been false all along…) has been shaken, shattered, and scattered.
That’s a lot to process, adjust to, and hold, friends.
Prayers for Anxious Yet Hopeful Hearts
Hey, friends.
What a week the world has been through. As we wrestle with feelings of overwhelm and cling to hope, we wanted to share a few prayers that have brought us comfort and peace over the last few days. Pray them when you feel anxious, pray them when you're moved to intercede, pray them alone or with those closest to you--and all the while, know that we are praying that the peace of the Lord Jesus will guard your hearts and minds (and bodies, too!).
Praying Scripture: The Time-Tested Practice of Lectio Divina
The Psalmist declared to have hidden the word in his heart, and that it was “sweeter than honey” (Ps. 119:11, 103), and Paul encouraged us in Colossians 3:16 to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” I’ve never found a practice of reading scripture that invites me to do the same quite like lectio divina!
I was first introduced to this ancient practice while on staff with Young Life, when Bob and Claudia Mitchell led us through it at a staff retreat a decade ago. Their love for the words of Scripture were only unmatched for their love for the God these words revealed, and I was captivated. I wanted to know the heart of Jesus the way that they did, and so began my journey with lectio divina.
How to Pray the Psalms
For some people, the Psalms are a part of scripture that have always felt like home, but for others, it takes a while to get into them. I was in the latter camp. The pathway to spiritual growth in the Psalms isn’t as clear-cut or pragmatic as places of didactic teaching, encouragement, or commands in other parts of scripture.
Donald Miller opened Blue Like Jazz with, “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way” (pg. ix). This was my experience.
The Poetry of Praise
The Psalmist declared to have hidden the word in his heart, and that it was “sweeter than honey” (Ps. 119:11, 103), and Paul encouraged us in Colossians 3:16 to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” I’ve never As I began to work on this post, I intended to write a very academic post about Psalms of praise—but I find I’m reflecting more on how the Psalms have taught me to worship. It’s easy to categorize the Psalms into individual and communal laments, individual and communal praises, etc, but truthfully, each psalm contains elements of both. Lament and praise go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin, in a kind of rhythm with one another, often experienced simultaneously, and they are both worshipful. They both bring glory to God.
The Earthiness and Wonder of Lament
Truthfully, this post has been in my thoughts for weeks, but the discipline to sit down and actually WRITE about lament has been lacking. I’d like to blame it on the recent power outages here in Northern California (we had FOUR of them, three of which were back-to-back, for a grand total of 9 days without power in the month of October!), or even the very busy season of life and ministry that we’re in this fall. But really, it’s because I’d rather remain distracted than acknowledge the need for lament, even in my own life. It’s so deeply personal, and all too real.
As a culture, we can be quite averse to lamenting. When someone expresses their sorrow or pain or doubt, we can be quick to offer cliche responses like, “Things will get better." "You’ll look back on this years from now and be grateful, because everything happens for a reason.” “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” (I literally cringed as I typed that last one.) Though co-lamenting seems the natural response, most often I give in to the temptation to circumvent or minimize it, as though I have to immediately come to the conclusion that God will somehow make something sweet out of bitter circumstances. I can have such a hard time sitting with another person in their pain that it’s no wonder I’d rather avoid or narcotize my own!
Psalm 1: Walking Trees
As we continue our series on the Psalms, we wanted to take some time to look at Psalm 1 together, which is believed to have been one of the last Psalms to be placed in the Psalter, strategically arranged to serve as an entry point into the rest of the Psalms. Psalm 1 invites us to ask two questions: “What are the Psalms here for?” and “How do we read them?” But more importantly, they ask some fundamental questions of us: “Who are we, and who are we becoming?” and “What is our vision of the good (or virtuous) life?”
Right here at the beginning, the psalmist presents two ways of becoming: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, “expressing with remarkable clarity the polarity of persons and their destinies” (Word Bible Commentary Old Testament: Psalms, “Psalm 1,” P.C. Craigie). Blessed is the one who walks in the way of the righteous, the psalmist declares. These are the people who will be like trees planted by streams of water and will yield good fruit, and whose way will be known by the Lord. He begins the psalm with a beatitude, similar to the beatitudes at the beginning of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. The word for “blessed" can be more closely translated as “happy”: happy is the person who walks in the way of the righteous. In our day and age, happiness is a fleeting emotion, usually based on a particular experience.
The Psalms: Our Language of Prayer
Last week, hundreds of thousands of people were without power and electricity for several days across Northern California. It’s currently peak wildfire season, and in an effort to prevent power lines sparking during a windy few days, a major utility company made the difficult decision to cut power in our area. Honestly, it was difficult not to be frustrated during those couple of days — with all the throwing food out of the fridge (and thinking about local businesses who would lose so much money, or families who can’t afford to lose what food they have), stumbling around a dark house with headlamps and candles, showering at a friend’s house who was fortunate enough to have hot water, having to charge my phone in my car, and being without internet access.
You'd have thought that a lack of electricity would have been an encouragement to enjoy being unplugged and unhindered by the distraction of screens for a few days (especially after our recent post on Practices of Resistance!), but I mostly felt oddly disoriented and on edge. Being stuck in darkness for a few days had a disorienting effect on my mind, body, and spirit.
Walter Brueggeman writes about this idea of disorientation in his book Praying the Psalms. He suggests that our faith moves through three phases: “(a) being securely oriented; (b) being painfully disoriented; (c) being surprisingly reoriented” (p. 2). We long for the security of a sense of “equilibrium,” when things feel settled and normal—such as having full access to power, electricity, running water, and internet. While there are some Psalms that reflect this season of secure orientation, but a majority of the Psalms are laments, cries out to God when we experience disorientation.