If prayer occurs amidst an ordinary and distraction-laden life, then the apt question is, “How might we include these distractions into our prayers? Rather than treating each interruption as something that rips us away from Jesus, how might we embrace these distractions, even transform them, as tools for our devotion?
Jesus
A Blog about Prayer
If we think this that prayer can only occur when all is quiet, we inevitably find ourselves viewing every hiccup or distraction as a negation or prayer. And once prayer is negated by interruption, it’s easily abandoned. We end up reserving prayer for those special times when no one is around, and all is silent.
God Bless the Incompetent
Ministry isn’t about competency or prowess; it’s not about maximizing our endeavors or achieving some ever-increasing public recognition. In the life of faith, we never rise above our own frailty. In fact, the places where we feel foolish, weak turned-around, or less-than, may be where God’s blessings are most fully revealed.
Ministry in the Ordinary
Serving God can be boring. There I said it. This is something that all who are involved in ministry know, but rarely articulate. The boring reality of ministry seems to betray the high hopes with which we accepted our callings. After all, we began our work for God with visions of entering the work of the Spirit, of growing the church, and transforming the world. And yet as time goes on, we find that much of our walk with God is uninteresting. Ministry involves ordinary events like mowing the lawn, baking a cake, or attending yet another budget-related meeting.
Beyond Pass or Fail.
In the life of faith, we sometimes use the language of “testing” to describe God’s interactions in our lives. We might even say something like “God’s not troubling you, He’s testing you”, to describe life’s difficulties. But have you every wondered what we mean when we talk about God testing us? Is God the heavenly equivalent to a disgruntled driving instructor?
Taking a Leap of Faith: Did I do it wrong?
Do leaps of faith ever go wrong? Are they always positive? Does a leap of faith ever land us in a place we would rather not be? Lately, I overheard someone describe taking a “Leap of Faith” and how the result was better than they ever could have imagined. As they described it, taking this leap lead them into untold blessings, glories, and an acceptance of their God-given purpose. I try not to be cynical, but I have found that when one’s faith experiences seem too good to be true, it probably is.
Walk in what is Good
I don’t want to play for the algorithms. I don’t want to put my writing on hold so that I can appeal to publishers. I don’t want to seek an audience or a platform. I simply want to walk in the way that Jesus leads me. For me, the good way is to uplift those who are discouraged and to live into that encouragement myself.
Deflating my spiritual spare tire.
Are we as attuned to the dynamics of our spiritual life as we are to the physical? Do we notice the presence of “spiritual spare tires” – the weights and burdens that sap our strength and keep us from living the life that Jesus invites us into?
There was a man sent by God. His name was Kyle.
You are not your followers. You are not your success or your shares. You are not the memes that you post. You are not the thumbs-up you receive, or the comments you gain. You are not what today’s algorithm says you are, or what tomorrow’s metric will try to force you into. You are sent by God.
Playing Spiritual Games
In 1937, a man named Frank Laubach described what he called “The Game of Minutes.” The game expressed Laubach’s desire to be mindfully focused on God’s presence “at least one second of each minute.” You read that correctly; one second every minute. Given that there are 960 minutes between the hours of 6am and 10pm, the Game of Minutes naturally calls us to turn our attention to Jesus 960 times.
Reverend Kyle Norman 