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Thinking about choosing a word for the year? Here are my blogs on the topic. I love this practice!
May you know the presence of our loving God this day, this week, this month, and this year.
Happy new year! I’m glad to share this prayer for 2024 by George Dawson from the 1800s – still applicable today.
You might also want to consider three simple prayer practices you might want to add in the new year to strengthen your relationship with God. Read the blog hosted at God Hears Her here.
I pray you will have a peaceful and joyous start to the new year as you cling to the loving presence of God.
Today here in the UK I’ve learned that it’s National Poetry Day! This just so happened to coincide with me leading one of Coracle’s Space for God slots, where we coming together as a community to encounter God, and I led us in writing a pantoum, a kind of poem. (You are more than welcome to join the Tuesday and/or the Thursday cohort! Links for both on the Coracle website. If you would like to engage with this prayer practice through the Space for God video, it is here.)
I’ve been thinking about liminal space ever since Gabriel Dodd shared his excellent thoughts on the topic in his Space for God. I later that afternoon wrote a pantoum about my own encounters with liminal space—the already but not yet experience that we encounter so often in life as followers of Jesus.
Today I encouraged us to wrestle with and sink into a passage from Romans, which pulses with the already-but-not-yet:
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:22–27, NIV)
It’s deceptively simple to craft a pantoum—if you can jot down six phrases or lines, you have got it! I invite you to join in with this special practice:
ponder with God what liminal space you’re in
pray through the Romans passage
go where the Spirit leads
remember that the Spirit intercedes on your behalf
How to create a pantoum:
write six lines or phrases
label them A through F
choose most important line as A
make the second most important F
order the lines in the following pattern:
A
B
C
D
B
E
D
F
E
C
F
A
I would love to hear from you if you engage in the practice, and if you meet God through it!
May the mystery of God enfold us,
may the wisdom of God uphold us,
may the fragrance of God be around us,
may the brightness of God surround us,
may the wonder of God renew us,
may the loving of God flow through us,
may the peace of God deeply move us,
may the moving of God bring us peace.
Joy Cowley, Aotearoa, New Zealand as found in Geoffrey Duncan, compiler, A World of Blessing: Benedictions from every continent and many cultures (Norwich: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2000), p. 226.
Have just over a minute to breathe and pray? I welcome you to breathe in the love of God, the companionship of Jesus, and the advocacy of the Holy Spirit. Filmed in the beautiful setting of Mulberry House.
Jesus loved his friends, and taught them how to pray. This prayer may be so familiar to us that we skim over it, but we can slow down and ponder each phrase for encouragement, inspiration, and delight. Join me in the amazing ruins of Waverley Abbey, the first monastery in Britain, as I lead us through this prayer.
Let me know if you use this prayer exercise, and if you’re willing, how God met you. May praying the words Jesus prayed enrich your faith in him and love for others.
Happy new year! The prayer of examen is simply looking back to move forward with God. You might want to take some time this month to consider a few questions as we launch into the new year. I found these somewhere last year and engaged with them – I’m sorry that I didn’t note where that was!
Three questions to consider: 1. What have the storms of 2022 picked up and blown away for you? 2. How has 2022 anchored you more firmly? 3. What fresh roots have you discovered in the noise of this past season?
Hello from sunny Spain! I am here at El Palmeral leading a retreat. This week we’re exploring the story of Jesus with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and how friendship with God changes them—and us. I’ll be sharing some videos on my YouTube channel in which I lead prayer exercises and welcome you to join in. Here’s one that introduces the lovely chapel, after we’d prayed night prayer together. Enjoy!
Recently when on retreat I led some times of engaging with the Bible prayerfully, including turning some of the prose into a poem. I love this rendition that I’ve been given permission to share.
You could read through it slowly, asking God to help your love overflow. Then perhaps spend some time with a passage of your choosing, having a go yourself?
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless…
Philippians 1:9–10, NRSV
Eyes to see, Ears to hear, Heart to love, being and becoming
Knowing to knowledge; Helpless to helped; Better to best, Mercy and forgiveness
Graceless to graceful Thankless to thankful God’s love abounds to all around God’s love, God’s love, you have been found –Ann Ruby
Order 7 Ways to Pray here for more ways to encounter God, including a chapter on praying with the Bible.
I continue to love personalizing Psalm 23, and this week as I’m at Penhurst Retreat Centre in the lovely English countryside, I’m enjoying seeing the sheep and lambs as I ponder the Lord as my Shepherd. I share in the video below, which I recorded while being in the Shepherd’s Hut at Penhurst, about how to adapt Psalm 23 to us today.
On social media I welcomed hearing your renditions, and I’m delighted to share Caroline Lessiter’s lovely one: “The Lord is my Friend,” with permission.
The Lord is my friend, therefore I lack no support.
He makes me rest when I am tired;
He leads me to thin places
where I can take stock and be refreshed.
He guides me when I am feeling lost,
for His glory.
Even though I may be deeply troubled
I fear nothing,
because You are at my side always.
Your ever presence
comforts me.
You hold out Your hands of love
and welcome me during my times of struggle.
You wrap me in Your loving embrace
and I am filled with Your strength.
Surely Your grace and mercy will be with me
for the rest of my life
and I will live in my Father’s house
forever.
