If you?ve read this blog long, you know that we believe a strategic spiritual and leadership practice is setting aside a day (or at least part of a day) per month to be alone with God. This is a core value of ours. Recently, one of the leaders in our training raised this question: I […]
Do Small Things with Great Love
A while back, I read the Come Be My Light, the story of Mother Teresa?s life and spiritual journey. Many know that she spent most of the last decades of her life with little or no conscious sense of God?s presence, though remained a woman of deep and faithful prayer. Here are a couple of […]
How Can You Become Vibrantly Attentive?
?One of the finest of interior disciplines, practiced by those whom we have most reason to admire, is that of a period of deliberate receptivity at or near the beginning of the conscious day. Some who have gone deeply into the life of the Spirit report that they begin the day by saying ?Lord, I […]
Leadership: Asking for Direction
In the book of Joshua, God?s people have a very unfortunate experience of poor spiritual leadership in what the New Living Translation calls ?The Gibeonite Deception? (sounds like the title of an action/thriller to me). Specifically, as Israel was entering into the land God had promised to them through Abraham, they were not to […]
What Do I Really Want?
?It is doubtful if any work of excellence is ever produced without some discouragement and without days when the producer goes on doggedly, not because he likes it, but because he knows that this is the only way in which any work of importance is ever completed.? (Elton Trueblood. The New Man for Our Time. […]
Are You Significant?
Are you accomplishing something significant??Do you see yourself as significant? Feeling significant is a major quest for some people. In fact, it is a deep-rooted identity issue. Our society contributes to this issue by attempting to make everyone feel significant?thus our kids play games at school where there are no winners or losers. On one […]
Practical Thoughts on Personal Retreats
Recently, I read a book by one of my favorite historic spiritual directors: Reginald Somerset Ward, Lord and Giver of Life. It?s a collection of retreat talks on the Holy Spirit. I paraphrased some of his practical counsel about fully engaging a personal retreat: The body on retreat Sleep well. Try for eight hours per […]
