He. Himself. Is. Our. Peace.

He Himself Is Our Peace

As I was contemplating my devotional for this month, I decided to share a spiritual discipline versus writing another blog post about peace. When you practice this discipline, you can experience God’s peace in your life. Right now.

Meditation on Peace

What follows is a guided meditation on the Word of God based on the Christian spiritual discipline of contemplative prayer (a.k.a. meditation). In his classic book on spiritual disciplines (A Celebration of Discipline), Richard Foster observes:

In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.”

One way we can “disengage” from the pressures of the world is with contemplative prayer or Christian meditation. Foster states that words used in Scripture “to convey the idea of meditation” occur more than fifty times—and that’s just in the Old Testament!

These words have various meanings: listening to God’s word, reflecting on God’s works, rehearsing God’s deeds, ruminating on God’s law, and more. In each case there is stress upon changed behavior as a result of our encounter with the living God. Repentance and obedience are essential features in any biblical understanding of meditation.”

As followers of Christ, we don’t practice meditation for the sake of clearing our minds or relaxation (although relaxation may be a happy outcome just the same). Instead, we meditate on Scripture and the Lord’s promises in order to bring about repentance in our lives, so that restoration replaces resistance and rebellion; obedience overrides resentment.

Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8 (NKJV)

Today’s devotional will walk you through a Scripture-based meditation that centers on Jesus Christ as our source of peace. As you participate in this contemplative prayer, you will…

Click here to finish reading this guided meditation on PEACE on
Rooted at the Throne – Daily Devotions on Rachael Carman’s site. 

Footwear of Faith

Footwear of Faith
Imelda Marcos Shoe Collection - Marikina Shoe Museum
Imelda Marcos Shoe Collection

How many pairs of shoes do you personally own? Does your family jokingly refer to you as “Imelda”? Or are you a one-pair wonder who sees little point in owning more than one functional, comfortable pair of shoes? I, myself, am a little closer to the one-pair wonder than Imelda Marcos (who owned more than 1,200 pairs of shoes).

I tend to have one pair of shoes for every occasion: I wear flip-flops everyday ?; tennis shoes for the gym ?; ankle boots with my dress pants ?; sandals in the summer ?; heels for special occasions ?; and winter boots when it’s cold outside ❄️. Oh, I almost forgot: I also have an old pair of those “special” Sketchers® that never did firm or tone anything saggy ?. Oh well!

Why all this talk about shoes? I thought this was a devotional. True. True. Well, shoes have soles, too! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist! ?)

The truth is, as I prayed about this month’s theme, God brought to mind some common idioms about faith, and they all involved feet! For example, a person takes a “step of faith”; another is “walking in faith”; and someone else just took a “leap of faith.” Apparently, the practice of faith requires moving your proverbial feet. Before we start selecting shoes, however, let’s first define what faith (the verb) is and is not…

Click here to continue reading my devotional at “Rooted at the Throne” hosted by Rachael Carman.

3 Types of Joy

3 Types of Joy

I’d like to tell you a story: Three friends met for lunch at the golf course ⛳, and each one was full of joy. Reggie, after slightly puffing out his chest, exclaimed, “Well, guys, I “hate” to rub it in, but my team made it to the Final Four …AND my company gave us tickets to the playoffs!” He leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head, and challenged anyone to top that! 

Tyrone replied, “Jealous. Not jealous. That’s cool, man! But…I have some pretty good news of my own: My wife told me this morning: ‘We’re having a baby!’ ? I can’t believe it! I’m gonna be a dad!” ? ?? He was beaming and smiling from ear to ear. 

“Congratulations, man!” Jim chimed in, “That’s fantastic! When is she due?”

Their conversation continued for a few minutes until Jim changed the subject: “So, I hate to break the mood, but I need to let y’all know that we finally got the pathology report back yesterday. Turns out, I have prostate cancer. ? It’s treatable, but it looks like I’ll be practicing my putt at home for a while.” 

“Wait!” you interject. “I thought you said all three men were ‘full of joy’! How is that possible when the third man is sharing a cancer diagnosis? I’m sure he was ‘exuding’ something, but there’s no way it could be JOY!”

As a matter of fact, he was full of joy—just a different type than the other two—we’ll look at that in a bit. But first, I want to share with you about a discussion we recently had on my Facebook page.

As I prayed about and contemplated the word JOY for this month’s devotional, I spent some time in the Bible and a few minutes on Google. Did you know there are 19.5 million articles explaining how/why joy is better than happiness?! Good grief! Just so you know, I’ve decided NOT to add to that total. You’re welcome! 

While I was clicking around, I came across a number of images and memes promoting the popular motto: “Choose Joy!” Upon reflection, I wondered if it were literally possible for a person to CHOOSE joy. Rather than ponder this by myself, I chose to pose the question to my Facebook friends—a fantastic cross-section of folks from across the U.S. (and the world)—to see what they had to say…

Click here to continue reading this reflection on JOY at “Rooted at the Throne” hosted by Rachael Carman. 

Love Songs & Unselfish Love

Unselfish Love

Love is in many ways fine:
      Like a nickel, like a dime.
But love is more valuable to me
      Than one, two, or even three…

And so begins one of the most *ahem* “memorable” poems I’ve ever written.  (I won’t make you suffer through the rest of it.) Judging by my handwriting at the time, I’m guessing I was around nine or ten years old when I penned that masterpiece. Back in the day, apparently, those two silver coins represented huge value for me, because I compared them to the one thing everyone on the planet desires: LOVE.

It should come as no surprise that my nickel and dime view of love wouldn’t last forever. As I entered the teen years, my experience of love shifted from coins in my pocket to “teardrops on my guitar.” (Well, make that my pillow. Taylor Swift, I am not.)

All the Feels

In high school, hormones had me convinced that love was a feeling (or more than a feeling)—one I couldn’t fight anymore. When “the feels” eventually subsided or my heart was broken, that all-consuming “love” evaporated into thin air. And then, I was all out of love, and so lost without ____________ (fill in the blank). Emotion took me over—tied up with sorrow; lost in my soul. And time? It kept flowing. Like a river.

As I matured, I struggled to wrap my mind around that crazy little thing called “love.” It’s such an ambiguous term, we shouldn’t be shocked that people go looking for love in all the wrong places. For with this singular word love, I express my passion for penguins, “The Princess Bride,” dark chocolate, football, and family.

If I were to explain the power of love according to hit singles on the radio, it might sound a little bit like this… Click here to continue reading my devotional at “Rooted at the Throne” hosted by Rachael Carman.