Discipleship/Spiritual Formation

Christ is able to know our hurts

“Jesus is not Zeus. He was a sinless man, not a sinless Superman. He woke up with bed head. He had pimples at thirteen. He never would have been on the cover of Men’s Health (he had “no beauty that we should desire him,” Isa. 53:2). He came as a normal man to normal men.Continue reading “Christ is able to know our hurts”

The desire for the old wine

Luke 5:36–39 (NIV) 36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wineContinue reading “The desire for the old wine”

Basic discipleship

What Jesus treated as basic discipleship in his time on earth we’ve made into a rarity and some “specialist” work. In Mark 9 Jesus has come down from the Transfiguration and a father runs straight to him.

What have I left for others to follow?

I am working through 2 Timothy 3:10-17 and Paul gives a tough assessment of what is going on in the world and all that Timothy will have to undertake. It is a real assessment that reads like it seems hopeless. What to do?

The cost of following and not following Jesus

This is about the longest break I’ve taken from blogging in a long time. There was a bout with COVID, dealing with a physical injury… and time slipped away.

How I want to live

I think again about “Last Third” living and come across a marvelous quote from Winn Collier’s outstanding biography on Eugene Peterson: “His life and work had been more like tracing a scent than following a map. Discovery, not direction.”

The nourishment of my soul

I have finished Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. There are some key thoughts from his book that stir my own story. Nourished by the Sacraments and formed by the prayer and teaching of the Church, we need seek nothing but the particular place willed for us by God within the Church.

WITH God is communion

I am not there, but my heart longs for this as I walk with Christ: From With, by Skye Jethani:

The goal is not “using” God

The worldviews we have employed, especially as western Christians, have limited us. Our views of God have become myopic. The goal needs to be life WITH God. Skye Jethani in his book, With, lays out the four worldviews we’ve used are summed up in four words:

The manipulation of living “FOR” God

The book, With, by Skye Jethani is deeply challenging. As I read I realized the deep flaws in my thinking and living because I have this deep urge to “feel bad” and wish I could go back and start over. That arises from my warped view of how to live “for” God. The point isContinue reading “The manipulation of living “FOR” God”