Do you remember how when we were children we would watch clouds with an intense interest and imagination? We would rest on our backs on the cool grass on a warm summer day and examined God’s blue pallet. “Look, there is a giraffe.”“Over there, a speeding car.”“And if I squeeze my eyes till they are almost close, I think I see a marshmallow being stretched apart by two gorillas.”Meteorologists tell us that every cloud contains a weather message. God sculpts all types of clouds as messengers of hope from Him to help us weather the storms in life.I love looking up each day and seeking what God is telling me in his heaven. You see, I am a cloud chaser.· Cloud chasing involves looking up. This physical act of raising the chin lifts the spirit and provides a momentary pause by focusing on new possibilities instead of our problems.· Cloud chasing invites us to look inward and to indentify what is churning within our hearts. · Cloud chasing reminds us to look beyond our … [Read more...]
Five Lessons about Discernment
Each January I record in my journal a list of spiritual hopes, dreams and goals for the upcoming year. Then throughout the year I try to reread this entry and reflect on what is holding true, what is growing deeper within me, and what died on the vine and disappeared.Many times ideas on the list come from my ego driven self-centeredness. On January 1 this year I actually read a quote from Tozer that echoed this confession: “What a pity when we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.”So true. I wrote this quote in my journal. But it is the two next entries that have driven my year and shaped my plans.Right after I read and recorded that quote, I wrote “Lord I want to be open to God-sized dreams and impossibilities this year.” (Watch what you pray for, right?)Then I wrote one word. A word that dripped from my pen uninvited by my ego. A word that has continued to surprised me this year and has pursued me by popping up in unexpected places.Discernment.I pause this May morning and … [Read more...]
A Powerful Response to the Question: How Are You?
Patty Wysong has created a fun meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here. It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet. Take 2 since this is the second time she has used this meme. Anyone can join in and you don’t have to always participate. This fun meme has now progressed to the letter T. The letter T starts my answer to the question:How Are You?We all do it. We pass each other with the causal, not expecting an honest answer, to the question of “How are you?”I read recently some blog conversations challenging us to answer honestly. To stop and really listen. I wonder how many of us answer exactly how we feel. Do we in truth want to slow down and hear someone’s reply?Do we say?:To be honest, I am not feeling well. Or I feel alone and abandoned today and cried myself to sleep last night. Or even I can’t believe you are asking me when I know you really don’t care or … [Read more...]
Praying like a Radio – Tuning into God
Patty Wysong has created a fun meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here. It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet. Take 2 since this is the second time she has used this meme. Anyone can join in and you don’t have to always participate. This fun meme has now progressed to the letter R: A good R word is: Radio.Praying like a Radio – Tuning into GodImagine a listening to one of the great radio shows on an old time receiver. You lean forward with eager expectation. Adjust the knobs just right. Pay close attention to every word. As you listen, you melt completely into the story being told.Don’t you wish our prayer life worked like that? I know I do."God does speak—sometimes one way and sometimes another—even though people may not understand it." Job 33:14 (NCV)Prayer is tuning the heart into the frequency of God.I love the image of the radio as a vehicle of prayer. … [Read more...]
Five Questions From the Bible to Add Depth to Your Prayers
Patty Wysong has created a fun meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here. It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet. Take 2 since this is the second time she has used this meme. Anyone can join in and you don’t have to always participate. This fun meme has now progressed to the letter QQuestions I am thankful we have a God who we can question, explore, debate, and even wrestle. I believe the more we are honest with Him and reach out to Him with our doubts, fears, and anger – the closer He draws us to Him. God is bigger than any of our emotions. I know I ask Him a multitude of questions in my faith walk. But this past year I have let Him turn the tables and ask me questions. I have created a list of 50 questions from the Bible and often use one of them in my morning prayer to jump-start my meditation. Since this week’s letter is Q, I naturally thought … [Read more...]
Prayer by Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt (Photo credit: onecle)Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. Deliver us from the fretfulness and self-pitying; make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of the world made new.Eleanor Roosevelt … [Read more...]
What’s on Your Nightstand?
I am a reader. I love books and am a firm believer in “there is no such thing as too many books.”I am one of those readers with several books going at the same time. We are called “poly-readers.” I think it is easier to do that with non-fiction, my usual fare.My husband laughs at me: I have books on the living room end table, the nightstand, on my desk and in my car. And yes I have a Kindle with several books in progress there too.I heard on NPR the Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller say:“I mean, I like the idea of books, not just this thing off to the side of our lives, but they're right in the midst of our lives. We're, in effect, living our fiction and our nonfiction. And you can do that when you're reading multiple books. You do kind of just get this idea that you're moving through this forest of words and stories and characters. It's not just this block of paper or a Kindle or an iPad sitting at your elbow. It's a part of your life. It's something you're moving through, … [Read more...]
10 Provisions for Your Spiritual Journey
My husband and I traveled last week in Arizona. We didn’t know the roads or what awaited us beyond each turn in the road. But we were loaded down with all the essentials to find our way: our GPS unit, one city and two state maps, plus the one sheet map given to us by the rental car agent. I brought along the AAA Arizona guidebook, several dozen brochures, and two sheets of Google map directions.We only got lost twice. Not bad for two Midwesterners exploring the west.I wondered what I bring along to help me find my way on my spiritual journey. Reflecting on this last night when I couldn’t sleep (my body was tired, but my mind still believed we were in the Pacific time zone) I began a list of what has helped me grow closer to God and ideas of some tools God may be inviting me to use before I get lost or stuck on a long dusty detour. The first five I do okay with, the last five I have far to learn yet and need more practice:1. Sitting with the Sacred – Prayer is an essential to any … [Read more...]