Guided by the Holy Spirit on our Journey

Open up your Heart, revealing sins & hurts and finding healing, freedom, and reintegration

When sin came into the world, relationships between humans and God, humans and creation, and humans and each other all became broken and disintegrated .   Additionally, humans became disintegrated within themselves, with their minds, hearts, and habits no longer working in concert with each other and with God.  This disintegration has resulted in many personal  and society ills, as well as physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma, leading many of us to “deny”, “detach”, or “drug” (to use John Mark Comer’s terminology) to cope with this brokenness.  Jesus, however, has come to make us whole, and part of the discipleship journey is seeking out the healing we need in order to become the integrated, whole men, women, and children that God has created us to be.  Thus, we are invited (sometimes with the help of others) to reflect on what is going on in our hearts, revealing the sinful attitudes and distorted desires within us, as well as uncovering the hurt, pain, and false narratives about God and ourselves that have come to reside in our hearts because of other’s sinful actions and attitudes towards us.  We are also to discern the practices/environments/habits that are malforming us and to which we are overly attached.  Then, we are to do the necessary work to turn from our sin and attachments and to find wholeness for our wounded hearts. At times, this will involve forgiving others, as well as seeking forgiveness and reconciling with others. 

Observe how God is working in the Seasons and Stages of Faith

Since the beginning of the Christian movement, attentive Christians have noticed that the spiritual dynamics of the Christian journey change over one’s lifetime.  As Christians mature in the faith and as they experience different seasons of the spiritual life, they also experience God and the world in different ways.  As such, we have different spiritual needs over the course of our lifetimes and find that the practices that help us most connect to God change over time.  

Therefore, we are invited to pause and recollect what God has been/is up to in our various seasons and stages of faith so that we may recognize His presence and respond to His invitations to draw close and follow Him.  For whether we are in a time of joy or sorrow, faith or doubt, spiritual failure or triumph, spiritual energy or lethargy, or felt closeness to or felt distance from the Lord, we can be confident that the Lord is present.

Orient yourself to God’s voice, so that He may guide you like a Compass, showing you true north

The Lord is always communicating with us if we  have ears to hear.  When we discern the Lord’s still small voice and respond to it, the Holy Spirit helps us to understand ourselves and acts as our compass, guiding us in the ways we should go.  This does not mean figuring out “God’s perfect will for our lives” but rather responding in love to God and others in the actions we take and the decisions we make. 

Though many people do not believe that we can discern the Lord’s voice, when we make space for solitude, attentiveness , and reflection, we can discern the Lord’s voice by attending to the interior movements of our hearts such as thoughts, feelings, desires, attractions, and resistances.

Then we discern whether they are coming from the Lord or from another place.   Are the “voices” we are hearing leading us towards the brightness of the Son (consolations) or away from Him (desolations)?  Are they leading us into inner dispositions and actions of faith, hope, and love, or are they leading us in an opposition direction?   By attending to these consolations and desolations, we can discern our “next right thing.” 

Order your life with an Ebb and Flow of discipleship and life rhythms

We are embodied souls, who need to tend to our spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational health in order to flourish.  As such, we are invited to occasionally reset our lives, finding helpful rhythms and spiritual practices that help us care for ourselves, open up space to be with and know the Lord, and encourage us to live into our values and priorities as followers of Jesus.  We are to live with intentionality – to find rhythms between work and rest, contemplation and action, solitude and community, lament and celebration, giving and receiving, fasting and feasting, full engagement of our senses and a quieting of our senses, etc. etc