We serve a God who seeks
Amidst the milds and meeks
Those of a humble heart
Where grace can have its start
Tag Archives: peace
12/16 Limerick: See Us Right
StandardTo live a life that’s free of fright
We must believe God sees us right
To know that we’re seen
And yet counted clean
Is what helps us sleep through the night!
10/21 Limericks: A-Proval
StandardToday I will live out
Rather than for
God’s approval
10/13 Limerick: Well Unsettled
StandardI long to live life well settled
So I can act as fine fettled
But God stirs my pot
So every thought
Is rebrewed as something Christ-kettled
Limerick: Good Evil
Standard‘Tis true that this world’s full of woe
And it feels like the further we go
In following Christ
We pay a steep price
And oft receive blow upon blow
Limerick: Will Joy?
StandardThe question I’m longing to say:
Will joy be my portion today?
But backwards I got
When forming that thought;
“Will joy!” — is my call to obey.
Poem: Hesed
StandardWe feel that nothing can go wrong
When we trust that we truly belong
It seems our salvation is sure
When we know it is us they adore
Limerick: Favor Found-er
StandardGenesis 6:8 Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
We need a foundation that’s sounder
When taking the role of a founder
The problems are hairy
Competitors scary
And often we find ourselves flounder
Limerick: Peace Divide-Ends
StandardPoem: Idle Work
StandardReflections on impending employment
The call to work
We must not shirk
Yet being busy
Can cause a tizzy
Poem: Supple-Mental Peace
StandardToday I will hold fast to the cross
And loosely to all else
Fruit vs Counter-Fruit
StandardWe were created
To cultivate
And consume
The Fruit of the Spirit
Enjoying it
Is like being
Back in Eden
Refresh Focus
StandardTo exist as humans
Is to live in the tension
Between the eternal
And the mundane
We cannot lose sight
Of one or the other
So it is needful
That we keep shifting
Our focus
But sometimes
We lose our rhythm
We get stuck Continue reading
Dream: Love Story
StandardThere is a story within the story
One story is a fairy tale.
Sort of like Beauty and the Beast.
TGR-05: Deep, Deep Joy
StandardJoin us on Zoom or YouTube/Facebook Live to co-create the video of this episode at 10 AM PST on Friday, May 1st, 2020 AD.
Question: How do we develop unconquerable joy?
Continue readingRSVP with God: Outcome-Driven Quiet Times
StandardRSVP stands for the four steps I have been using to help my spirit align with God’s purposes for my life:
- Rejoice: Meditate on yesterday’s emotional highs and lows until you find a way to rejoice in them
- Shalom: Repeat until you can rest in God’s peace. Over time your “set point” of how much peace you expect will increase.
- Vision: From that place of Peace, ask God what to focus on today. As part of this, I like to read a short devotional, look up relevant Bible verses, and God for a single “theme” word for the day to prime my thinking.
- Praise: Finish by affirming God’s sovereignty over everything that is going to happen, and thanking Him for showing up.
A Sinner’s Prayer for Peace
StandardLEAD! C.11 Discerning Direction
StandardIn Which We Hear to Obey, and Obey to Hear
Few questions are more fraught with promise and peril for the believer than “What is God’s will for my life?” While we know the textbook answers, we still long for more specific, personal guidance — and rightly so. Properly hearing God’s voice can open the door to dramatic transformation of people, relationships, and society; alas, mishearing God’s voice can result in darkest tragedy.
There is no simple answer, but there is a sure promise: if we entrust our ways to the Lord by faithfully pursuing the disciplines in submission to the Spirit, the Word, and the Body, He will ultimately lead us in a way that glorifies His name…
Memory Verse: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” — Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)
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Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline
- 12. Guidance
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Donald Whitney: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
- 12. Learning
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Eugene Peterson: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
- 3. Providence: “God Guards You from Every Evil”
- 14. Obedience: “How He Promised God”
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Ruth Haley Barton: Sacred Rhythms
- 7. Discernment: Recognizing and Responding to the Presence of God
LEAD! C.5 Studying Scripture
StandardboIn Which Diligently Searching God’s Word Leads Us to Truth
Few disciplines are as essential — or as dangerous! — as studying the words and works of God. Used in the wrong spirit, theology can become a heavy burden or a useless distraction (cf. Matthew 23:4). But when taught by the Holy Spirit, God’s word becomes the very source of life itself (cf. Luke 4:4). The challenge to us, as to Timothy, is whether we will apply God’s word rightly…
Memory Verse: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” — 2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV)
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Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline
- 5. Study
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Donald Whitney: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
- 2. Bible Intake (Part I)
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Eugene Peterson: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
- 6. Help: “Oh, Blessed Be God! He Didn’t Go Off & Leave Us!”
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Ruth Haley Barton: Sacred Rhythms
- 3. Scripture: Encountering God Through Lectio Divina
LEAD! B.9 From Sloth to Fruitfulness
StandardIn Which We Abide Fruitfully Instead of Vegetating Slothfully
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” — Matthew 5:6
Sloth may seem like an archaic sin in our busy modern world, but our frenzied activity is itself a sign of sloth, which can be defined as a lack of vigor in pursuing God’s name — His character and purposes. In fact, the self-centered pursuit of our own “name” — especially under the guise of religion — is actually the worst kind of sloth! (cf. Matthew 23)
The antidote is to empty ourselves of worldly pursuits so that we become truly hungry for faith, hope, and love. Only when we abandon slothfully seeking our own comfort — which merely results in restlessness — can we experience the divine dynamism and peace that comes from abiding in Him…
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Peter Kreeft: Back to Virtue
- 11. Hungering for Righteousness vs. Satisfied with Sloth
- Dick Hockett: Foundations of Wisdom
- 3.5 (Trustworthy) Example: Proverbs about the Tongue
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