Category Archives: Spiritual Growth

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The Benefit Of Heading Outdoors

I’ve been reminded frequently over the past few weeks just how important it is to take a break once in a while. I’m not talking about taking a vacation, although that’s necessary as well. What I’m seeing the need for is for brief breaks throughout the day to help you stay effective.

Rocky Mountains near Como, CO

I don’t know if you are like me, but once I get into a zone of productivity, everything else takes a back seat. Once I get into the swing of a project, I will continue working on it until I finish, or until I must shift gears to something else. I’ve been known to skip lunch or stay late at my desk, or even stay awake half the night, simply because I’m on a roll.

That’s great for productivity.

But it’s not so great for my health, physical or spiritual.

The need to take a break is an essential part of our being. We were created to rest; we need to stop and slow down occasionally.

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Personal Retreat Days (ESD)

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Creating margin in your life is important if you are going to grow in your faith. Taking the time to develop space for God to work on your spiritual growth is a key aspect to maintaining that growth throughout your life.

One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is through a series of Personal Retreat Days.

Bear Trap Ranch, Colorado Springs

Let me state this right up front. This is not my idea originally. I wish it was. I would love to be able to claim credit for something that has impacted my life so drastically. But I can’t. I took this idea straight out of Leading On Empty, by Wayne Cordeiro. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. It is easily on of the most influential books I’ve ever read. You can find more helpful tools based on this book at LifeJournal.cc.

The tenth chapter of Cordeiro’s book is perhaps the most important. This chapter is all about developing the intentional life. Beginning with the daily flow, the chapter gives some incredible insights for creating a cadence for your life. From there, Cordeiro turns to the weekly life, and how to practice Sabbath. Both of those could be examined closely and give a lot of benefit.

But the next section is what changed my life. Looking at life from a seasonal view, one of the main activities is a Personal Retreat Day. My purpose here isn’t to repeat everything Leading On Empty discusses. You can pick up the book and see what Cordeiro suggests on your own. What I would like to share is a brief overview, a look at how I use the day, and the benefits I’ve gained in my life.

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Cultivating Solitude (ESD)

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Solitude is a necessity for anyone who wants to listen for the still, small voice of God. Just like any other discipline, it takes some effort and it takes some practice. The more you work at instilling opportunities for solitude in your life, the easier it becomes to shut out the noise and distractions of daily life and focus on listening to God.

But how do you do that? How do you cultivate solitude into your everyday life?

Cultivate Solitude

It’s not as difficult as you might imagine. In order to be effective at this, you need to remember that this is a twofold discipline. Every spiritual discipline is something that you do. But it is also a state of mind. Doing these things helps you to be who and what God has created you to be.

Understanding that, there are several things that yo can do to eliminate the distractions and instill solitude. There are many way to do this. Here are a few that I’ve found to be most effective in my own life.

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The Need For Solitude (ESD)

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We live in a very busy culture. And it seems as if it gets busier and busier all the time. Have you ever wondered why this is true? I Suspect that it has to do with our fear of loneliness. You may not want to admit that you fear being alone, but I believe that the fear of loneliness is one of most deep seated fears that we face. And I believe that more of us face that fear than we know.

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Because we are afraid to be alone, we surround ourselves with noise and busyness. We succumb to the crowds, and keep the constant hum of humanity around us at all times.

My generation was bad, but my kids’ generation is even worse. One of my daughters wears earbuds at all times, one in her ear, the other hanging down. My sons keep a radio station on in their room almost all the time. We even play white noise in the baby’s room. This keeps him asleep when the rest of the house is noisy. It masks the other sounds. I get that. But are we instilling in him from day one the fear of silence and aloneness?

But loneliness and noise aren’t our only options. There is another path we can take. We can develop the discipline of solitude and silence into our lives, and learn to live in that place, without the need for noise. Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, says this: Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.

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Rejuvenating Your Prayer Life (ESD)

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Probably one of the most difficult spiritual disciplines I face is the challenge of keeping my prayer life fresh and meaningful. It seems too easy to slip into a dull routine, praying the same prayers, or types of prayers, every day.

Once you fall into that rut, it can be difficult to pull yourself out of it. But if you want to experience a vivid and meaningful prayer life, you must do something to revitalize your prayers.

Woman Praying

Building a vibrant prayer life isn’t as difficult as it seems. Of all the methods I’ve tried in my life, none of them has been difficult. The only difficulty I’ve experienced has been in my consistency in maintaining the habit. It’s easy to fall into a dulling routine, or to become complacent in your prayer life.

But when that happens, your spiritual health suffers as if you’d just been sealed away from the life-giving oxygen that we need to survive. The frightening part is that we may not even notice that we’ve drifted until the effects are drastic.

For that reason, it’s crucial that we develop and maintain the discipline of a healthy prayer life. Over the course of my life and ministry, I’ve discovered a few ways that have helped me to keep my perspective fresh. Hopefully, they will help you as well.

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The Purpose Of Prayer (ESD)

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One of the most important aspects of the spiritual life is centered around the discipline of prayer.

Prayer is an essential part of the inner life because it is an integral part of communication, and communion, with the Father. We receive our communication from God through his Word and other means. But our communication back to God comes through the medium of prayer.

Prayer is more than just talking with God. All too often, we have a misconception that our prayers to God should be like a heavenly vending machine. We submit our requests and sit back and wait for the answers to pop out.

Man Praying

That’s not what prayer is about.

Prayer is much richer and deeper than we can possibly realize. In the next few paragraphs, I want to share something of the importance of prayer. This topic is so critical that books have been written about it, and there are many excellent ones to research. One of my favorite resources is The Complete Works Of E. M. Bounds On Prayer. Of all the works on prayer that I’ve read, this one impacted my life more than any other. If you want to read it, I highly recommend it.

There are scores of examples of prayer throughout the Bible, and dozens of passages that give us a glimpse of what prayer is. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is communication. Prayer is effective. Prayer is asking. Prayer is listening. Prayer changes God’s mind. Prayer is an essential part of the life of the believer.

But there are four main aspects that I think are helpful to remember about prayer. These describe prayer quite accurately, but not completely. Prayer is each of these four things. But prayer is also so much more than just these four things as well.

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Establishing The Discipline Of Bible Reading (ESD)

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The benefits of reading the Bible are almost too numerous to count. If we want to develop spiritual disciplines that help us to grow our faith, then this is a simple first step.

But how do we go about this? What are some ways that we can implement this into our lives? All too often, I hear people say that they’ve tried to read the Bible, but either get discouraged, or fail in their attempt to stick to it.

In the past, I’ve written several articles about how to go about creating an environment where Bible reading and study can flourish.

I’ve used several different styles of Bible reading over the years, and have found one that fits my life pretty well for the time being. I seem to gain a lot from what I read.

I use a system where I read ten different chapters a day. Using this system, the Bible is divided into ten different lists. The idea is to read one chapter from each list daily. When you reach the end of the list, you simply start it over. Some lists are longer, others are shorter, so each one will end at different times. This guarantees you will be reading different portions of the Bible together every day. Many times, you’ll see correlations you never knew were there, simply because you haven’t ever read those passages together before. It’s pretty incredible. You can read more details about this system here.