Tag: renewal

Top Ten Signs that You Need Renewal

Hi there! If you are new here, please subscribe by email or RSS feed to get new posts (there’s a Connect bar here on the right with cute buttons for that). I post 3 or 4 times per week. That adds up to loads of goodness per fortnight. By the way, I’m so glad you stopped by.

TOMORROW’S POST:
Reflections on God [or what happened with the Jesuits, part II] Click here for Part I.
(click for photo attribution)

Top Ten Signs that You Need Renewal 

1. Observable deficits in enacted Fruit of the Spirit. (i.e. less qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control)

2. You find yourself perceiving things others say as personally offensive, or as direct attacks.

3. You are “venting” more online. 

4. You feel unloved.

5. Posting on your blog or being active in social media, or online makes you feel significant. (Accordingly, not getting that sort of instant gratification creates feelings of emptiness or frustration.)

6. You’re writing about your stuff rather than really working through it.

7. Increased tension in your face-to-face relationships, while giving greater significance to internet-based relationships.

8. You struggle with at least one of the “seven deadly sins”: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

9. You feel spread thin like too little butter pulled across toast. Or you feel toasted, or similar to toast, in any respect.

10. You’re in a creative slump.

If some of these ring true, spiritual refocusing and guidance will create more creative (and general) energy and renewal in your life.

What is your tip off that you need renewal?

Thankfully, some help is near. Guidance is at hand, and it works for non bloggers too! Search the category “blogging” for some helpful articles. Visit again soon, too. More resources are coming.

For personal spiritual guidance (for the courageous), use the contact button to get started (lower right), or to find a retreat center click here.

Beyond this blogging series…is an alliance of committed bloggers to keep Christian blogging a ministry of integrity. Integrity is a word I love, because its literal meaning is wholeness. When we are emotionally and spiritually healthy, we are whole as message-bearers. As people. We lack for nothing.

So, if you enjoy reading or writing blogs, I hope you’ll join in with the interactive community at Facebook.

Click to go to FB page

Reflections on Reflecting [or what happened with the Jesuits, part I]

Aside from my utter confusion in my first Mass experience (stand up, sing this, say that, sit down, pass peace, say something else…all things a casual Evangelical finds alien), I was so very filled and fortified by my recent all- day retreat at the Jesuit Center‘s Guided Day of Prayer (which was Lenten themed).

It stood together in contrasts:

  • A quiet and calm place & my restless and weary soul
  • Freedom in the boundless love of God & the the intricate, foreign  formality and rule of Catholic liturgy and Holy Communion.
  • Muted joy of Lenten season & the bright love and goodness of my spiritual siblings
  • A banquet of food and refreshment & the observing of stark silence
  • A wide open day of prayer and reflection & the speed at which it passed

A scheduled day of silent prayer retreat is something you might not know you need until you get it. I sat in the beautiful chapel and wept off and on for over an hour, much to my own surprise.

I found it amazing how God can use a place and others to all at once pierce and convict my sullied heart of sin and obstinacy while also flooding it with his omnipresent love and overflowing grace. Let me tell you, it’s healing.

But let me be clear: It’s healing, not in an “I feel all better now” type of way. It was very much like the “undragoning” spoken of in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (I was Eustace Scrubb.) It smarts, but then too, it brings refreshment.

In the absence of noise and obligation you begin to hear, see, listen and perceive with keener clarity. In determined places and times of silence Reality becomes louder and more involved. Love becomes saturated in, through, and around you, the creaturely image-bearer of the Divine. You come again to the Center, the Real. Home.

Several analogies shared at guided portions brought me great insights. I’ll share those in soon in part II.

Many retreat centers offer space for a time of quiet and prayer for just a little money.  Here’s a directory to find one near you.

Spiritual Challenge: A prayer walk.

hiking

Flickr photo from this source.

I’m curious to know if you’ve ever been on a prayer walk? Would you please tell me in the comment section/link below?

The weather (in North America) is changing to mild temperatures, and the beauty of Spring is here.

I’d like to inspire you to carve out 20-45 minutes, (or more, if possible) within the next few days from the time you read this, to absorb the beauty of creation, and the God of it.

This beautiful picture gave me the kick to write this post. Let’s both do it. Go to your calendar now, check for a spot, and mark it down. Morning time, evening, weekend, whatever. You truly have 20 minutes, I know it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. We both know-once you mark it down-it’s quite likely to happen.

With this time, you can allow yourself the experience of a guided prayer walk, using some, or all of the guidelines I’ll lay out below. It will help create a place in your heart to experience the presence of God within and around you. It’s really the perfect Rx for the spring season.

Some suggestions for your walk time:

Items to bring along-

– Comfortable, durable, Shoes

-(if needed) Sunscreen/basic first aid kit

-Water

-Snack

-Notepad and pen

-Camera

(Some of you may want to bring a Bible. If you feel this is important, I am suggesting that you read Scripture before you go on this walk, and if you’d like, bring along a passage, or verse that is on your heart.)

First, allow yourself to acclimate to your environment. Notice your surroundings. Walk deliberately, and also wait, sit or rest, once in a while, and take in your surroundings. Put hurrying aside.

Second, as issues, or chatter run through your mind, push them gently aside, or if they are quite intrusive, jot them down, and give yourself permission to think of them, at another time. (You may may find it helpful to briefly lift those things to God in prayer, and purposefully “hand them over,” before you continue your walk.)

Third, continue until you feel like you’d like to find a comfortable place to sit, or rest, for a little while. The jot down something about your surroundings, and associations that may come to mind about God, and God’s character. Note your response to God, or his creation. Or, record other thoughts you feel are meaningful, or maybe things you would like to explore further, at some point.

Fourth, enter into a time of prayer. It can be any length of time. This is a time of conversation, and also worship. Worship involves  adoration of God. Speak, but also listen.

Fifth, be where you are.

Sixth, Continue your journey until you are ready for it’s conclusion. During this time, you may want to spend more time in prayer, engage in vigorous exercise (walk at a rapid pace, for instance), gaze appreciatively at nature, or sit in quiet, or a bit of each. It’s a free-play, or freeform period of the hike/walk, where you can have all the freedom to enjoy it in the way which makes the most sense for where you are right now in your life. Sense God’s love for you, and his delight in you. If you cannot, ask him for the grace to do so. Forgive others, and forgive yourself.

Seventh, when done, offer a brief prayer of thanksgiving, and accept God’s grace. Receive from God. After a few minutes, write down noteworthy thoughts, experiences, ideas, sensations, or insights that happened along the way, or during your prayers.

Eighth, Later, share some, or all, of your notes with at least one other person.

You may want to walk with another friend, a spouse, or in a small group etc.

How rewarding this is!

For this, I suggest that a period of prayerful silence be observed during the whole time,

and conversations between people be postponed until after the walk is through.

Group discussion after the walk may prove very fruitful.

If you give this a try, I’d love to hear how this goes.

Will you please share your experience here?

(Photos you’ve taken can be sent to ovationeneterprises (at) verizon (dot) net)

May God be with you.