What Does My Quiet Time Look Like?

I have often wondered what others do when they spend time with the Lord. Do they kneel down to pray? Do they read the same scripture for a week? Do they work through a pre-made devotional? How do other Christians meet with God, and what are the practices they use to grow deeper in their faith? Since I have often wondered what others do, I thought I would share what one of my typical mornings spent with God looks like.


I am an avid coffee drinker and find that there is something special about having a fresh cup of coffee during my time with the Lord. Also, since I am usually just waking up and tired it helps keep me awake most mornings. So the first thing I do before sitting down with the Lord is grab my favorite coffee cup and pour myself a cup.

After I grab my coffee I usually sit in our big comfy arm chair and take a moment to pray. I thank God for the chance to meet with Him and ask that He would guide my time this morning. Then I will take 15-20 minutes to read scripture. Currently I am reading the Psalms with my church which has been a rich experience.

After spending time being challenged by scripture I will do one of two things. I will either take time to pray and listen to God, or I will journal my thoughts and prayers in one of my many journals. I love to journal because it allows me to read what God was doing in my life in the past and see how He has always been faithful even when I couldn't see it. (When I do journal I always grab my favorite fountain pen)

Outside of reading my Bible and journaling I will sometimes use other devotionals to challenge me and help me to grow. One of my favorites is The Message SOLO which provides a Lectio Divina (Latin for Divine Reading) type format. Also this week I have been guiding me journaling through the book Journaling As A Spiritual Practice. 

Well there you have it. These are some of the ways I spend my morning connecting with God. I have been challenged my mentor to strive to make meeting with God in the mornings a consistent part of my day. It can be challenging to wake up early; however, it can also be one of the most rewarding times of my day. May you find time to meet with your creator today and be filled by his presence!


God Bless,
Jason

Energy Vampires

This past Sunday Pathways @ Washpark started a new series called "Energy Vampires". Throughout the series, we are looking at what things suck life from us and from our relationship with God. Our main teaching pastor, Susie Grade, kicked off the series by talking about the regrets that we hold on to from the past, especially our guilt, grudges, and grief. At the beginning of the message they showed this Igniter Media movie that spoke to the regrets many of us have. One of the quotes from the video that resonated with me was "I Regret Consistently Missing Time With God Yet Somehow Never Missing My Show On TV." This resonated with me because there have been many times that I miss my time with the Lord; however, it is fairly rare that I miss watching the shows I follow. As I watched the video I felt convicted about how I chose to use my time and how little I give to God. Check out the video below.


Blessings,
Jason

The Need to Write

I have been thinking a lot about writing lately, and I have realized that despite my desire to write I often neglect to create space in my day to practice writing. I have had this blog for almost two years and have only published 43 post. Too often throughout my week I am reminded of my desire to blog and yet I chose to fill my time with other activities. I thoroughly enjoy writing and was reminded of this as I cleared out one of my drawers to find 6 journals that I am currently using. This doesn't even count the new journals I have waiting in boxes to be used or my journal with Amy to our much anticipated son.

Needless to say, I enjoy having the space to write down my thoughts. I enjoy being able to read a blog entry from last year or a prayer from 2007 and see both how my relationship with God has changed and how I have changed. I wish I wrote more; however, I believe that the writing requirements of grad school have made me feel as though I have nothing left to say. At times, I ponder what I could blog about and am left questioning if I have anything to offer. Tonight I am trying to remind myself of why I write. While I hope that this blog can be a place of encouragement for those who read it, the real reason I write is to record my process of growth, record what God is teaching me, and remember where I have been. I thought about taking up writing for Lent this year and committing to write daily throughout the 40 days. Despite missing the first week and a half perhaps I will still try to write more this Lenten season.

Meeting God in the Morning

   
       This Spring semester, one area I am working on in my life in that of discipline. I have realized that I want to lead a more disciplined life, and so I decided that I would make this the focus of my character contract. One of the ways I have been putting this into practice is waking up at 6:00 A.M. 3 times a week to spend time with God. The other week, during my meeting with one of my mentors, she challenged me as to why only 3 days a week? Why do I not wake up Monday thru Friday(or everyday) to spend time with the Lord. I honestly told her that it was due to laziness. She asked that as part of our mentoring I spend one week waking up at 6 and having a quiet time.
       As of this morning, I have spent the last week successfully waking up at 6 and spending time with the Lord. The time with God has been good. I have been reading through the Psalms, journaling out my prayers, and leaving space to just sit and listen to God. Nothing radical has happened, I didn't hear an audible voice or feel God leading me into something crazy, but I have seen my relationship with God grow through the repetition of spending time with Him. It was nice to know that Monday thru Friday I will wake up and be with the Lord. There were some mornings that I was so tired that after I had my quiet time I fell asleep in my chair and Amy had to wake me up, but I faithfully continued to wake up each morning.
       One thing I did see throughout this last week is that I actually spent more time with God than I normally do. Usually when I would have a quiet time I would spend 30 minutes, however, this past week I spent an hour most mornings. It has truly been refreshing and a time I have valued.

       Do you have a regular quiet time?  What time works best for you to meet with God? What sort of things has God been teaching you lately?

Blessings,

Jason

A Good Reminder For Pastors

A sense of hurry in pastoral work disqualifies one for the work of conversation and prayer that develops relationships that meet personal needs. There are heavy demands put upon pastoral work, true; there is difficult work to be engaged in, yes. But the pastor must not be "busy." Busyness is an illness of spirit, a rush from one thing to another because there is no ballast of vocational integrity and no confidence in the primacy of grace. In order for there to be conversation and prayer that do the pastoral work of meeting the intimacy needs among people, there must be a wide margin of quiet leisure that defies the functional, technological, dehumanizing definitions that are imposted upon people by others in the community. Henri Nouwen writes:

Without the solitude of heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of heart we cannot experience the others as different from ourselves but only as people who can be used for the fulfillment of our own, often hidden needs.

Eugene Peterson-Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Ministry

May we all remember our need solitude and rest.

Blessings,

Jason

Control

      Throughout this past week, one of the things that God has been teaching me is about control. We all would like to believe that we are in control of our lives, however, I have been learning just how little control I actually have. I have been looking for a job lately, and while I hope to find a job working as a pastor or director at a local church, I have also applied at Starbucks, Panera, Home Depot, Dish Network, Tattered cover, and many other companies.  Out of all of those applications I received one interview, which is not that abnormal from my experience of trying to find a job this past summer/fall. Lately I have been left questioning if perhaps the reason none of these jobs applications are producing anything is because God has a job in store for me but it has not been the right timing yet.
      With our son arriving in April (and our income ceasing) I have tried to remain patient, trusting that God is in control. I believe that God will provide, and I have seen Him provide for Amy and I many times throughout our marriage. Despite this knowledge there are times when I get nervous and realize that April will be here before I know it, I need a job quickly. After thinking about this a lot last week, I have realized how little control I actually have. I can pretend that I can take matters into my own hands and find a job, but when I apply to countless companies, only to never hear from them again, I realize that God is the only one who is in control. I was talking with one of my mentors last week about my lack of control in life and how much Amy's pregnancy has made me realize this. Amy can do everything in her power to protect and nourish our son throughout pregnancy, but ultimately our babies health is out of our control. I have read many stories of miscarriage and know that these mothers were doing everything in their power to keep their babies healthy.
      The reality of our life is that we are not in control. Of course there are certain elements of our life that are within our power to control, but as a whole God is the only one who is control of our lives, what jobs we will get, and if our children will be healthy and safe. I am thankful that I have a my faith in God to help comfort me during these times when I realize how little control I have in my life. Praise be to God that He is the one in control for He truly knows what I need more than I do. May we all recognize that despite our desires we are not in control of our life, and in recognizing this may we turn to God even more, recognizing our deep need for Him every hour of every day.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap not gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do your worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' FOr it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Matthew 6:25-33 (NRSV)

Do you have silence in your life?

   
       Throughout my adult life, I have asked myself this question on numerous occasions, do I have enough silence throughout my daily life? Far too often, my first instinct in the morning is to retrieve my coffee, sit-down with my iPad to read my e-mail, read the paper, and check Facebook. I find that my natural response to times of silence is to fill it with noise, for example turning on Pandora while I am home studying. When I am not at home, I am usually either interacting with people or listening to the radio in the car. Case in point, while I type this I currently am listening to the Mumford & Sons radio on Pandora. The question of if I have enough silence in my life is an important question, one that is worth taking the time to ponder.
       In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster states, "If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture, we must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation." As I read Foster's classic work I am left wrestling with the lack of silence in my own life, and asking how I can "move beyond the superficialities of our culture" and mold my life to reflect Christ. I believe that we all need to consciously create spaces of silence within our daily lives, in order to allow ourselves the opportunity to hear the voice of the Lord. Many have questioned whether or not God still speaks in the twenty-first century, but I want to challenge this idea with the notion that we are asking the wrong question. The question is not if God still speaks, but do we as Christians still listen? I for one know that I am guilty of not listening and then becoming frustrated that I do not hear the voice of God in my life clearly. If we began creating spaces of silence I believe that we will find God speaking just as clearly as he always has.
       I want to encourage you to join me in creating more silence in your life throughout the next week. Make the effort to turn off your music, shut down your computer, and embrace the silence. I guarantee that it will be awkward at first and you will feel pressure to return to the noise, but I urge you to recognize the awkwardness as a sign of your need for silence in your life. As Christians, it is important that we work at deepening our faith and fight the societal pressures to fill our lives with noise. We must seek whole heartedly after Christ, but in order to do this it is imperative that we stop what we are doing and listen, perhaps then you may hear the soft voice of God speaking in your own life.

Blessings,

Jason

Humility

     One of the requirements of the MDIV program here at Denver Seminary is to be involved in a fairly intensive mentoring program. Part of the mentoring is working on 'character contracts' which seek to help one develop their character in order to be healthier and more effective pastors. This semester my character contract is focusing on humility. How does one obtain humility, what does it look like, how did Jesus display humility? These are just a few of the questions I have been wrestling with throughout this semester and at times it feels like I now have more questioning about humility than when I started this process.

I was journalist a little bit about this process yesterday and wanted to share some of my thoughts. These are not completely polished or finalized thoughts on the topic of humility, but more just a glimpse of my mind working through humility.

Here he was, God's son, part of the triune God head, in a mans body, walking around in His Father's broken creation. I imagine Jesus was actually hurting in more ways than we often recognize. Here He was in a world that was meant to be beautiful and a representation of God, but instead it was/is broken, damaged, torn apart, filled with sin and yet there in the midst of everything was God's Son in all His glory. How did Jesus walk around day after day in this broken world without crying all day over the destruction of something so beautiful, yet do damaged now? Was it because He was God? Yes and yes. Jesus was able to walk the earth because of His great humility which he exhibited. Humility, humiliation, one can see it throughout Jesus' life. From His mother asking Him to perform miracles before He is ready, as if he were a magician to being spit on, mocked, and crucified on the cross. The question for me becomes am I willing to be spit on, mocked, or crucified for Christ, because these actions take great humility. Some days I think the answer is emphatically Yes! However other days I don't know if I could endure it. Thankfully these are the days Christ upholds me and reminds me that it is ONLY by His strength now my own. Praise God!

  I believe that in our society today humility is not something at carries with it a high value. We believe that one should seek out power, wealth, and prestige rather than humility. As Christians we are called to a different lifestyle, one that is committed to humility, and with this humiliation at times. I am challenging myself (and you) to take some time this week to think about ways in which you are pursuing a humble life? How can you in your humility both become like Christ and also know Him more deeply.

God bless,

Jason

Do you tailor Christianity to fit your needs?

Tailored Jesus?

I read this interesting article a few days ago titled "More Americans tailoring religion to fit their needs". I have been thinking about the concept of tailoring Christianity to our needs, and have been wrestling with the question of how much do we ignore difficult parts of the gospels because they don't fit our version of Christianity. My OT professor, Dr. Danny Carroll, challenged us in class yesterday that far too often in westernized Christianity we often cling to our theology too tightly. He suggested that even when we hit verses that disagree with our theology, we allow our logic to trump the scripture. We twists the scripture to support our own theology rather than allowing scripture to reshape our logic. I was challenged to continually try to allow the scripture to be the basis for my life rather than my own ideas. If you want to check out the article I have posted the link below. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the question of how much do we tailor Christianity to fit our needs.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-14/america-religious-denominations/50376288/1


Blessings,

Jason

Thoughts for the Morning

King Solomon

For one of my classes this semester, Kingdom of Israel & it's Prophets, we are reading very large chunks of the Old Testament. It has been a blessing to be able to read the Bible for my homework, and I have really enjoyed diving into the OT. This morning I was finishing up our assigned reading of 1 Kings 1-11. It is in this section that we see David's son Solomon become King, rule with wisdom, construct the temple for the Lord, build a massive palace for himself(I checked and his house was almost 7,000 sq. feet), and eventually turn away from the Lord. While Solomon was a very wise man as he got older he became distracted by temptations of the world. The Bible tells us that Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (11:3) and that as he grew old "his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God."

I believe that far too often we allow things of the world to distract us from whole heartedly seeking after God in our lives. This passage has got me thinking about what things in my life turn my heart away from the Lord? Is it the shows I watch on TV, the desire to have "enough" money, a pursuit of education, trying to make friends and family happy? I believe that as Christians we must constantly be reevaluating our lives to ensure that we stay focused on God and serving him. This passage has challenged me to think about what areas of my life distract me from God and what areas bring me closer to the Lord. It is my hope that I will focus more on the latter in order to continue drawing nearer to the Lord. May you take the time to examine your own life this week and weed out those things that draw you away from the Lord and focus on drawing nearer to the Lord every day.

God bless

A Glimpse of Seattle

I just got home from a wonderful time in Seattle, WA with family and friends. During my trip I had the chance to go visit the Edmonds waterfront which has always been one of my favorite places to spend time praying and discerning God's will. I will look forward to posting a new blog tomorrow, but for now I need to get some much needed rest after flying in late tonight. 


Blessings