Take Your Vitamins

When I think of Spiritual Disciplines I think about vitamins.  Vitamins are those good nutrients we eat in our food and take as supplements to help our body be healthy.  We grumble about vitamins at times because we want to "skip" them or dive into foods that are comfortable, but when we do and if we do too long our body reacts. We get sluggish, have a tough time sleeping, and maybe even get sick.  Sound anything like our spiritual lives? 

Yep? It is okay to nod your head.  Our spiritual lives can have the same reaction when we don't have some healthy practices in our lives.  Practices like being part of a healthy worship community and prayer are the same as our spiritual lives like exercise and enough water are to our body. 

There are a number of Spiritual Disciplines I've practiced over the years and it has taken some time to come up with the combination which works for my schedule, so feel free to try a few for yourself to see what works best.  There are some key elements you need to include in your combo:

1. Worship with a worship community and not on a boat, in a field, or on the TV.
2. Prayer in the morning and at night for starters, the more you pray the more you're gonna want to pray more (think prayer-endorphins).
3. Scripture reading from the Bible. Online Bible reading is fine, but nothing can quite replace opening your Bible to find the book, the big number, the little number and smile when you do.

The combo pieces are the HOW you practice the key elements. 

• Worship-Where?  With whom?  How engaged are you in worship?  How do you prepare for worship?  How do you share worship with someone else?
• Prayer-Do you sing your prayers?  Write your prayers?  Say them aloud or silent?  Do you give God a chance to respond?
• Scripture-What do you read?  How do you determine what you will read?  Do you use a devotion with the scripture for a daily "nugget" to ponder?  Do you write in your Bible or a notebook your reflections?  Do you underline in your Bible? 

**You may write in your Bible...there, I said it**

Some combinations I've tried which you may want to try as well...

• Worship, prayer (I pray a lot and in a lot of different ways), and daily devotion through an app on my phone
• Worship, prayer, and daily reading through an app on my phone
• Worship, prayer, daily scripture writing in a notebook, and daily reading through an app on my phone

Recently I've bumped it up and have found what seems to be providing quality God time in my everyday.  I can also tell when I don't have them in my day...I feel sluggish and grumpy.

• In the morning I read the daily scripture from the YouVersion app.  Sometimes I'll make an image or use one of theirs to share the text.  Some days I just read the scripture over and over a few times.
• I pray from the text I read.
• When I get to work I write a scripture passage from one of those "Year in the Bible" Pinterest pages.  I have a notebook dedicated to these writings.
• I pray from the text I wrote.
• When I get home, while the children do their homework or at a later time, I exercise for about an hour.  This can be walking with a friend or doing some cardio with a video.  
• I pray during the "cool down" portion of the workout.

It may seem like a lot, but I need it.  Just one scripture for a few minutes in the morning isn't enough and I wasn't receiving it into my heart/mind.  It was like a flash in my day that came and went, the opposite of what should happen with a Spiritual Discipline. I don't know about you, but the days can be long and difficult without a sturdy foundation beneath you.

So, what's your combination?  Start small if you feel overwhelmed.  Begin with regular worship, prayer in the morning and using a devotion app on your phone.  After doing that combo for a week or so, bump it up.  Add another prayer time.  Add underlining the scripture from the app in your Bible (you can write in your Bible...see, I said it again).  Find that combination where you feel your cup filling, your conversations with God being more regular and vulnerable, and your foundation sturdier.

You got this!

P.S.  As parents, our kids are watching and see the importance of worship, prayer, and scripture just like they watch to see if we eat all of our veggies at dinner.

Rebooting

Lately I've been working through a list of articles to write and the outline for a book (YIKES!) which have been on my heart and a ton of sticky notes for a while.  When to write, what to do with these thoughts, etc. have kept my notes and outlines in a pile collecting dust.  Imagine my surprise when I logged into Blogger to see some content published many moons ago.  So, just like the movies where they remake, reboot, re-(fill in your own blank), I'm going to keep going with this blog and not worry about starting up something new.

My last article written in 2016 and here we are in 2019...three years shouldn't have so much change, but it does, especially in kiddo years.  We now have a tween and a younger elementary age in the house.  No more nursery for us!  Life is filled with youth group, bikes without training wheels and sometimes I don't cook because they can.  It's refreshing.  It's also a whole new season with all new stuff coming at us as parents.

Wait...let me rephrase that...It's a whole new season with all new opportunities, blessings, and glimpses as we parent.  Perspective is everything.

My last article written the youngest would come to worship for a little bit and then leave for children's church.  Now, she stays in church the whole time and loves it.  She really does.  She loves to find the hymns and sing, find the scriptures in the Bible and follow along.  She loves to draw pictures on her bulletin, ask her father a million questions in a whisper (he's hard of hearing so this goes nowhere), and if at all possible irritate her sister.  She's awesome.

Baby girl's sister is now a youth and usually sits with family, but sometimes sits with friends or another family.  She likes the freedom of being the host of a pew or being received by another.  She pretends to not be listening during the sermon, but I catch her nodding her head or looking at me like I'm nuts.  I know she's really listening when she tells me something she learned or has a question later in the day.  Following worship I can tell how much she's been able to worship by the level of irritated she is or isn't with her sister.  She's magnificent. Life is filled with more new than old and sometimes I need to take a minute to breathe it all in and sigh it back out.

It feels good to be back to writing and I look forward to celebrating children (and now tweens) in worship with you!  If you have a topic you'd like to see an article on, don't hesitate to send it my direction.  You never know how the Spirit will lead.