Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Friends,

I would like to offer this simple prayer for your Thanksgiving dinner. It comes from the recent movie Seven Days in Utopia. It was meaningful to me; may it be a blessing to you.

For food, where many walk in hunger;

For faith, where many walk in fear;

For friends, where many walk alone;

We give you thanks, O Lord.

                                                      

 May your Thanksgiving be fun and full of gratitude!

Greg & Jeane

Spiritual Formation: It's All About Freedom

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."  Michelangelo

I have always loved this quote by Michelangelo when he was asked how he could make a beautiful angel sculpture from a shapeless stone. He added, "In every block of marble, I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."  

Wow. Beautiful. That's the sort of thing God does for us, isn't it?  

God sees things in us that we do not see. He sees beauty where we only see scars; he sees our place in this world where we only see our loneliness; he sees us as perfect in attitude and action where we only see our rebellion and mistakes. 

He sees a tender heart of flesh where we only see.......well, a big block of stone. 

I have said many times that instead of living in our failures and shortcomings it is our joy to live out of who God says we are in Jesus Christ. Instead of striving to make ourselves righteous, we live by grace out of the proclamation of what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ. That, friends, is our legacy from our Heavenly Father. That's freedom. Wrap your arms around it. Rejoice! 

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor. 5:21   

You see, the purpose of spiritual formation is not to bind us or stifle us or even cramp our style; instead it is to set us free to be exactly who God made us to be, always under the wing of the One who created us and knows us better than we know ourselves. 

  

Through the quiet of spiritual disciplines we allow space and a place for God to do the chipping and carving. He always, always sees the inner beauty that so often eludes us, and it is his great joy to set us free.   

Now give him a chisel and let him go to work! 

Greg  

P.S. The angel at the top is Michelangelo's Statue of an Angel for the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, Italy (1495). 

Spiritual Formation: the way of disciplined grace

our Weekly Upd

We are in the midst of learning about spiritual disciplines on Monday nights -- things like meditation, prayer, fasting, Bible study.

"Why so important?" you ask.

The disciplines that we are talking about are those actions that allow the spirit of God to do a work in us. By themselves, they can do nothing; they can only help to put us in a place where God can do something, and that something is to still us, transform us and renew us.

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, speaks of it as "the way of disciplined grace. It is grace because it is free; it is disciplined because there is something for us to do."
So last week we discussed meditation and got a chance to practice it a little. How did it go this week? Did you find a place where you can be quiet? Did you find a posture that is comfortable for you as you center the attention of your body, emotions, mind and spirit on the One who is your creator? Did you silence yourself long enough to commune with God?

It's hard, isn't it? We are just so busy. Our enemies are "muchness" and "manyness," and if they succeed we will never know the joy of silence with our maker.

Author Henri Nouwen says it like this:

 It is hard to leave our people, our job,
 and the hectic places where we are needed
in order to be with the One
from whom all good things come.


But when we do we can unmask the illusion
of busyness, usefulness, and indispensability.
It is a way of being empty
and useless in the presence of God
and of proclaiming our basic belief that all is grace
and nothing is simply the result of hard work.

Henri Nouwen, The Living Reminder

"For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and in trust shall be your strength."  Isaiah 30:15

I want to experience more of what that really means in the days to come. Are you with me?

Greg

Spiritual Formation: It's Still About Grace

Your Weekly Upda

Whoa. What got into Greg?

I've heard that once or twice this week. What happened? What's up? Did our grace-preaching, all-about-love, feel-good pastor suddenly turn on us and is now teaching about.......gulp, discipline? 

Don't worry. It's still me. And it's still about grace. 

Grace is not the opposite of discipline. It is not the opposite of trying; it is the opposite of earning. We know that we are saved not by our works or efforts, but by God's grace alone. Transformation of the heart is also a work only God can accomplish. Spiritual discipline is simply the art of putting ourselves in God's presence so his work can be done in us.

Let me be clear about this: it is not our salvation that is at stake; it is the formation, maturing and deepening of our walk as a disciple of Christ. It is going beyond to the next step of what God has for us here on earth.  

So what's all the fuss about spiritual formation? Dallas Willard writes that "it is a process that happens to everyone. Terrorists as well as saints are the outcome of spiritual formation. Their spirits or hearts have been formed."

Maybe it's time to take a look at what and who has formed our own spirits and hearts throughout our lifetime. More importantly, what can we do to make a turn-around so that our insides are being formed by the One who calls our name. Isaiah 43:1 reads,

But now, this is what the LORD says - he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name, you are mine."

This is really, really important, guys. Let's not settle for less.

Greg