“We don’t have to stress and strain to be restored; our work is to believe and surrender to God’s guidance and life-giving love. We don’t have to ‘dig up stuff’; God will show us where and what needs healing. We don’t have to fear God’s restoration project; God is not out to get us, but […]
“Christ’s salvation work on the cross has raised us from the dead, but we’re still wrapped tight in behaviors that keep us from walking free. When we are bound tight, we still have one foot in the grave, experiencing more hell than heaven. With a call to repentance, the Lord invites us to ‘Come out’ […]
“A prayer posture is a simple way to stay attentive to the One who’s always attentive to us. . . . Prayer postures are invitations to stay present to deep inner work as our bodies remind our hearts to pray.”- Summer Joy Gross “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this […]
“Our posture can position us to engage the holy with our full attention. Our bodies, not just our souls, were meant for prayer. . . . Prayer has become an even greater struggle in a world of beeps and buzzes and easily attainable information. Sometimes staying present to the voice of God takes an intentional […]
“We are hurried and harried, surging from one agenda to another, while life with Emmanuel passes us. . . . . Even amid the pain, God spreads a table for us in the wilderness, providing for us in our suffering. Surprisingly, gratitude that grows naturally from present moment awareness can become the way we scoot […]
“When our bodies are grounded in the present moment, we are quiet enough to become attentive to the uninterrupted symphony of praise that rises from every corner of creation. . . . We become available to the mixture of joy and sorrow we’re carrying . . . available to each other. We also become available […]
“After the crucifixion, the disciples huddled behind a locked door. It’s understandable. They had seen their Jesus die. They had heard about how He had been wrapped and placed in a locked tomb. But our Emmanuel is not hindered by locked doors. He pursues us, even when we’re huddled in the grip of our circumstances.”- […]
“Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is noticed along that line, then when you are in difficulties, it is as easy as breathing to remember — Why, my Father knows all about it! It is not an effort, it come naturally when perplexities press.”- Oswald Chambers, My […]
“God doesn’t weigh His attention on the balance of need. He doesn’t have to. His attention is spacious. Limitless. . . . He holds hope while we hold only questions. As we limp through our days, wondering how the threads of our stories will find meaning, He holds together the disparate threads at the end […]
“Most of us move through our days without a full sense of the presence of God. Of course we do. We’re human. We are practical atheists, scrounging for love, or self-resilient, head down and barreling through a to-do list only to awaken to the presence in moments when our Bible is open or on Sunday […]
“In the same way a child develops emotional object constancy, [we develop] spiritual object constancy. . . . It is refreshing to hear the writes of the Bible continually remind people to ‘remember’ when God . . . led them from here to there. . . . God calls on our memory of spiritual experiences […]
“When we’re in the Dark Night . . . our image of God Himself is shaken. We thought we knew exactly who we were dealing with, but during our Dark Night, we realized that we had a tight grip on an artificial idol. . . . We did not surrender to the true God.”- Summer […]