LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again A 40-Day Journey to Renewal LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again is a 40-day devotional for the season of Lent. The season of Lent refers to the 6 weeks of preparing our hearts leading ...
“And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all ...
“No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:9) What I have discovered is ...
"Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." (Luke 2:15) Lent is all about taking an honest look at our cluttered lives and taking stock. ...
A Prayer for Lent "How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to penance, fasting, and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it? But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent? How can I rejoice fully in ...
“If the Christian life has become the path of ease and fun in the modern West, then corporate worship is the place of increasing entertainment. The problem is not a battle between contemporary worship music and hymns; the problem is that there aren't enough martyrs during the week. If no soldiers are perishing, what you ...
In his book, When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change, Craig Barnes writes, “It is impossible to follow Jesus and not be led away from something. That journey away from the former place and toward the new place is what converts us. Conversion is not simply the acceptance of a theological formula for ...
“Prayer is inherently relational; it thrives in the context of an authentic, dynamic, reciprocating friendship with God.” Cynthia Hyle Bezek in Prayer Begins in Relationship, p. 15. Too often prayer becomes an item to check off the to-do list or becomes nothing more than our attempt to get God to act on our behalf for ...
“In solitude, at last we're able to let the Lord define us the way we are always supposed to be defined: by relationship, the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence. If we've never lived in the realm of pure presence without our world of achieving, we don't ...
“Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person. It is not about developing a so-called deeper life. We are in on it, to be sure, but we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions: God with us (Matt. 1:23), Christ in ...
“Among the important lessons that the spiritual giants can teach us, and on which they have striking agreement, is that we are not likely to experience reality in prayer unless we practice a great deal of silent waiting. Far from prayer being a matter of words, it is often, at its best, freedom from words, ...
“We are blessed with inner rhythms that tell us where we are, and where we are going. No matter, then, our fifty and sixty hour work weeks, the refusing to stop for lunch, the bypassing sleep and working deep into the darkness. If we stop, if we return to rest, our natural state reasserts itself. ...
“God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.” Meister Eckhart I didn’t recognize my own symptoms. After three weeks of summer travel and a jam-packed schedule I finally had a morning at home alone. After a three week hit-and-miss pattern of morning devotions, I plopped in my chair to ...
“As long as we cling to life as we understand it, we cling to a pinched and deadly image of things, an image heavily conditioned by our egos, our social programming, our limited knowledge of the options. But when we are willing to let go of life as we want it to be and allow ...
Gail Johnsen 