Summer months for many people include travel. I find that travel can present some challenges to maintaining my normal routines for prayer and Bible reading, but they are not insurmountable. Yesterday, I drove to our church camp to serve as a chaplain for a couple of days with our camp staff who are going through training. When I got to my room, the first thing I did was set up my devotional space. You can see it in the picture above. Something that is sacred or holy is something set apart for God. That little space is my sacred space for the next few days. It’s where I will take time set apart from the rest of my day to encounter God.

In my devotional space there are several items I brought from home and my office. These things serve as mental anchors to my home routines and are visual triggers to keep me faithful to my spiritual disciplines. Here is what is in my space.

1) My devotional bible. I use a Kay Arthur Inductive Study Bible for my devotional reading. It has no headings, footnotes or commentary. It’s basically raw text with wide margins for keeping notes. I do most of my reading from it because I like to first look at text and pray about it without being led by any other commentary. I use an ESV (English Standard Version) Study Bible, when I start moving into more research.

2) A candle. In the picture, a red glass candle holder with a cross on it sits behind the bible. That candle holder is from my office and was a gift to me. I often begin my devotional time by lighting a candle and saying the words, “I light this candle as a reminder of Christ’s presence with me.”

3) A blue mug full of colored pencils. I brought the mug and pencils from my office, as well. I annotate my devotional bible using colored pencils. I use colored pencils intentionally because they won’t bleed through the pages like highlighters or pens. To learn more about this practice read the post, What to write in your bible.

4) My journal. The black book in the picture is my journal. I journal in lots of ways. When I wrote my Novena, I intentionally wrote it on loose leaf paper, because I wanted to file it for easy reference next year. I find a bound journal more convenient when I am on the road. It’s smaller and I can readily pull it out when I am killing time in an airport or want to lie in bed and journal at the end of the day.

5) A little plastic turtle. You may not have noticed him in the picture. But in front of the blue mug is a little turtle. When I use to travel, I would get something from my kids to take with me as a tangible reminder of them and I would put it in my devotional space. For my son, I regularly brought a small plastic turtle I had bought for him while on vacation. For my daughter I carried a tiny clay vase with a dragon fly on it that I had bought her. This little turtle happened to be on my beside table when I was packing; so, I tossed him in as a reminder of my whole family. When I see him I remember my family in prayer while I am away from them.
 
Your travel set-up can be very simple. May be it’s picking a certain chair in your room to be your prayer spot and leaving your bible or a devotional guide in it as a visual reminder. Even if you don’t pick a space, carrying an object with you that spiritually reminds you of God and home can be very helpful. I began this practice when I was a missionary in Alaska by simply carrying a pocket cross. You can read more about that in the post, Surround yourself with objects that teach. I suspect that experience was the root of my practice now of creating a sacred space while traveling.
 
This practice has served me well and kept me true to my spiritual disciplines when traveling. I hope you will try it next time you travel. I am confident that you will find it is a blessing.
 

In the post prior to last,  I talked about strategically placing objects in your life to remind you of spiritually loaded moments.  These moments of remembering enhance your faith.  One reader, Gene in Indiana, noted crosses that his children had made for him that hang from his rearview mirror.  Then it struck me, duh, objects that teach are great gifts.  I should have thought to mention this; particularly, when my own story was of a cross given to me.

Here are 9 tips for making the most of giving spiritually meaningful gifts.

1. Commemorate an event. A baptism, confirmation, getting married, completion of a major accomplishment such as graduating, an anniversary of recovery, a retreat, etc.  Give the gift as reminder of God’s involvement in those events.
2. Give a gift they will regularly encounter.  Three types come to mind: a) items you can carry– i.e. jewelry, key chain, coin, pocket cross  b) items you display– pictures, carvings, decor  c) items you use–a tool, a bible, a prayer book
3. Personalize it.  Engrave it.  Sign it.  Date it.  Sometimes the spiritual significance is in the relationship that is remembered.
4. Make it. Handmade items always tend to be more meaningful.  As you make it be in prayer for that person.  We do this at our church with quilts for cancer patients.
5. Give it publicly. Some gifts are more meaningful when a person is recognized publicly.  We use to have monthly birthday meetings in a recovery ministry.  We gave out coins that commemorated significant milestones in people’s recovery.  It was a powerful thing to honor the accomplishment publicly.
6. Make the gift from a whole community.  Receiving something from an entire community makes a person feel a part of the body and has an intrinsic value of feeling supported.
7. Scripturize it.  Okay, I don’t think “scripturize” is an actual word, but the point is tie the gift to a scripture.  God’s Word is powerful and God is likely to speak through that Word in just the right moment.  This may occur many years down the road when you are long gone.  I reconnected through Facebook with a woman whom I gave a Bible to when she was a youth over 20 years ago.  When we reconnected one of her first messages to me was that she still had that Bible!
8. Give something that is personally meaningful to you. When I moved from one community, I gave away what had been my own study Bible full of my notes to a young man.  In another instance, I gave a youth the Bible that had been given to me at my confirmation.  He ended up giving me his confirmation Bible.  I think of him every time I read it and that was also over 20 years ago.
9. Give a gift with eternal value.  Consider a gift that will grow their faith.  How will your gift help them be closer to God?

Lastly, I will close with a God-incidence story around gift giving.  One time I stopped in a video store and my son ran into a friend from school.  I didn’t know the boy’s mother so I struck up a conversation with her as we waited in line.  I found out that she was staying in a drug rehab house not far from our church.  She happened to have just come from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where she celebrated her one year anniversary of sobriety.

I called my son over and sent him out to the car to get a small sack sitting on the front seat.  I happened to have a bought an entire sack full of coins like the ones pictured above earlier that day. In fact, the ones above are what are left from that very sack.  Most of them were coins with prayer hands on one side and the serenity prayer on the other.  I pulled one out and put it in her palm and said, “Happy Birthday.”  She cried tears of joy.  She later came to our recovery group.

You never know how a simple gift that is given out of spiritual concern and love will be used.  Consider someone who could use an uplifting gift and go give one today.  Here are 3 ways you can apply today’s post.

Application Opportunity #1
Purchase a sack of scripture cards, tokens, bookmarks or small items that you can have handy in your car or office.  Your local Christian bookstore will have tons of these items.  Prayer that God will give you an opportunity to give these to someone who really needs it.  Then, watch for the opportunity.

Application Opportunity #2
Give an object that teaches for the next gift you give.  Who’s birthday is coming up?  What can you give them that would be spiritually meaningful?  Who is moving away?  Going off to school?   Getting married?  Think of the next gift giving opportunity you have and make a point of applying one or more of the tips above to make it a gift that keeps giving to them and has eternal value.

Application Opportunity #3
Carry a pocket cross with you at all times with the intent of giving it away.