In my journey…

As a part of my journey of worship the past year, I have been dealing with a Plantar Plate injury in my right foot. Later, I’ll include some details about what led up to it and how it got to the point that I needed a surgical repair. Today, I am having a surgical repair of the plate. I think over the course of the next few weeks, part of my blogging will include some recovery thoughts and how that is impacting my journey of worship. I’m anticipating it being a time of reflection and anticipation. I hope you’ll join me!

Fits and spurts

This blog has been updated just as the title suggests: fits and spurts. I did a pretty notable string of blog entries as I began to work through the Bible in 90 days. I didn’t actually finish the series as life got in the way, but maybe I’ll come back to it someday. I’m hoping that in the coming weeks and months, I’ll have content to share on a regular basis.

In the meantime: Psalm 23 is about peace. This psalm is all about the fact that God is with us. He provides, he walks with us through trouble, he exalts us in the face of our enemies, and then he brings us to himself to be in the house of the LORD forever. God doesn’t pat us on the back and say, “good luck!” as we head into trouble. He’s right there with us. In those times of difficulty an awareness of God’s presence (even when we don’t feel it) will ground us in God’s love and mercy.

Something I’ve been practicing recently is breath praying. Intentionally slowing the breath and on the inhale praying one thing and on the exhale something else and repeating for some amount of it. Psalm 23:1 (NLT) is a great verse to practice with this. It would go something like this: Breathing in “The Lord is my shepherd” hold briefly. Then, exhale “I have all that I need.” Taking time to slow down and do a few minutes of this each day is really helpful. If you try it, let me know how it goes!

How to Keep a Spiritual Journal by Ronald Klug – Review

First printing: 1982

Ronald Klug’s How to Keep a Spiritual Journal is a useful resource for those who are interested in journaling for the sake of spiritual development. Klug’s suggestions abound for different ways to use and keep a spiritual journal.

Klug begins with the benefits of keeping a spiritual journal by tapping into the rich resources of saved journals and diaries of spiritual giants of the previous few hundred years. Much of the benefit of a journal is the time used for reflection of what is happening in the day-to-day events around us. This is more relevant today than it was forty years ago when this book was written. The constant barrage of information and notifications keep us from taking the time to reflect.

From the benefits, Klug moves on to the more practical advice of how to start and use the journal. The most often day-to-day use of the journal is the daily record, the thoughts and activities of the day that are worth reflecting on. From there he moves to other important uses of the journal like setting and achieving goals, time management, devotional inner-dialogue, and long-term reflection.

Each of these are valuable for those who implement them, but Klug is very clear that there is no right or wrong way to keep a journal. To Klug, how you use the journal is less important than that you use the journal and do it in a way that is sustainable over the long term. His suggestions provide plenty of options to get started with journaling and he finishes with how he thinks one can “harvest” the journal for themes and lessons from the duration of the journal.

Klug includes an appendix with various resources for further reading about journals, diaries, and the writing process. These suggestions are useful tools for those who are looking for other inspiration when it comes to journal and diary keeping.

With many practical suggestions, Klug’s How to Keep a Spiritual Journal is the forerunner of the Bullet-Journal Method but written with spiritual formation in mind. I highly recommend this book for those looking to start a journal or for those who need some variety to how they keep their journal.

Gentle and Lowly – Book Review

Dane Ortlund’s, book Gentle and Lowly: the Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, was gifted to me by my sister- and brother-in-law for Christmas. They had both been working their way through it and thought I would like it. Generally, I enjoy theologically rich, devotional works and gladly accepted the challenge to work through it.

Ortlund sought to use the Puritan method of harvesting as much from a single verse about God as he could in order to magnify God’s name and help others see his goodness. Along with Scripture, he frequently quoted from Puritan theologians as support for the arguments he made. I really appreciate the deep dive into one verse, it’s not something I’m used to doing.

Matthew 11:28-30 was the text that Ortlund used, and he focused in on Jesus being gentle and lowly. Going even further, because Jesus was the revelation of God to man, it means that God is gentle and lowly. What a beautiful way to describe God!

Unfortunately, Ortlund spent a lot of time reminding the reader of God’s wrath and divine anger. So much so, that, I believe, it tempers the message of Jesus (and by extension, the Father) as gentle and lowly. On the heels of what I believe to be the high point of the book (chapter 21), chapter 22 confronts us directly with the severity of God’s wrath on Jesus at the cross. “What is physical torture compared to the full weight of centuries of cumulative wrath absorption?” Ortlund asks (p. 200). The return to God’s wrath is so regular, that it is hard to take the fact that the heart of the Father is the same as his Son at face value. For those who don’t have a strong handle on the doctrine of penal substitution, the contrast of Jesus’ gentleness and lowliness with the Father’s wrath poured out on him don’t help them see the unity of the Godhead.

I recommend this book to those who understand penal substitutionary atonement and can work with the nuance of the wrath of God and Jesus’ gentleness and lowliness, I think this will go a long way to remind them of the presence and immediacy of Jesus with us. But for those who may be new to the faith or haven’t worked out penal substitutionary atonement, I cannot recommend it because it may highlight a perceived disconnect between Jesus’s gentleness and God’s wrath leaving more questions and concerns that comfort and peace.