- Part 65

admin' Post

Living in the Rhythm

In prior posts, I spoke about a growing struggle among people in their ability to focus in prayer. In part, this seems to be a combination of fatigue and a general decline in our ability to concentrate on a single task rather than multi-tasking. We are constantly interruptible by cell phone calls, text messaging, or instant messages. Rapidly flowing commercial breaks, pop-up windows, and a stream of 1 to 3 minute youtube videos only exacerbates our ever-expanding restless attention spans. Yet even these factors are symptomatic of a malady far more fundamental.

Many of us are failing to observe any rhythm to life. There is a constant rush to fill each minute with either work or entertainment. Even each minute is intended to be

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What’s on Your "To Be" list

Recent conversations have elevated my awareness of just how busy most of us our. There seems to exist some invisible code within our culture that prompts to fill every single minute with activity and if at all possible multiple activities. Cell phones, text messaging and wi-fi around every corner has also made us constantly interruptible. The result…being focused and present have become very difficult. In fact, being a human “being” and not a human “doing” is a counter cultural challenge.

I am as guilty as anyone. I tend to get out of bed and generate an unachievable “to do” list. Often times far into the day I check my list and find that I have hardly touched the things that seemed so important when

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Follow-up on Space For God

Just last night I spoke to someone about how their boyfriend keeps a Bible on a music stand in his room. Everything around it can be clutter and chaos, but the music stand holds its own orderly space with an open Bible. It is his space for God. One thing I was struck by, was how much this was a silent witness to her of his faith. Having a space both physically and temporally can be an unspoken witness of the priority of God in your life.

A number of years ago, I worked in a church in Oklahoma city and utilized a prayer room as my space for God. I was the associate director of a summer youth program. I would come early frequently

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Space for God

Someone recently asked me during Lent how I managed to get prayer done at home. They were wondering how to avoid distractions. I have a spouse, 2 children, and an extremely spastic dog. It was a valid question. I avoid distraction in three ways typically–

1) Plan my prayer for a time when everyone is gone.
2) Pray after everyone gets in bed.
3) Leave and pray somewhere else.

I highly encourage you to both make a space in your home for encountering God and find a space you can flee to for sanctuary. Your space at home can be as simple as a chair in the corner with your Bible resting next to it and a perhaps

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Centering Prayer Basics

In a prior post I spoke about the value of learning to become still before God. The simplest prayer form that I have encountered for learning to do this is an old monastic prayer form called Centering Prayer. I first encountered centering prayer as a college student on a retreat at a trappist monastery during holy week. A Trappist monk Basil Pennington was there and each day he took time to center with us and talk to us about prayer. It was a rather formative experience. In short centering pray is as follows:

1) Select a word that has significant meaning for your relationship with God. It can be a favored name or expression for God such as, Jesus, Spirit, God, Yahweh, Lord, etc. or

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Stewardship through Saving

A friend and an earnest believer whose blog I have come to enjoy, recently posted an article “56 ways to save money.” You can check out these really practical suggestions for enhancing your stewardship of God’s resources at her blog www.courtney-greengirl.blogspot.com. Way to go Courtney on helping us all with some invaluable how-to help on managing our finances.

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