A Few of My Favorite Things…

Over the past couple of weeks in the Harvest, we have been moving through this little book that packs a punch: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. It’s truly been a blessing to see what God has been saying in context to community and how we’re called to live and love alongside one another.

On May 10, the sermon was on “The Day with Others”. Last Sunday, it was “The Day Alone”. In both messages the heart was on living into and practicing the spiritual disciplines both within the context of community and alone in the prayer closet, as well. Many have asked about ways or resources they might find to go deeper in a daily devotion. I’d love to pass along some things that I have found helpful.

SO… allow me to introduce a few of my favorite things.

I love using this little spiral bound daily journal. Over the course of a week you’ll get a healthy balance of Old and New Testament passages. It follows the Lectio Divina format in that you read the passage, note the words that speak to you and then journal where it meets you in that moment. Can’t recommend this one enough. Check it out here: http://www.lectiodivinajournal.com/

Desiring to pray more but the day gets away from you and you lose the time? No worries. There’s an app for that. Here’s one I use on my phone called Echo. The premise is pretty simple. You add your prayer requests into it and you have the ability to set reminders that will notify you of the prayers you have added and remind yourself at various points throughout the day to pray. I’ve filled it with many, many names. I have loved how certain people or situations have popped up, I’ve prayed over it, and immediately sent a text to the person to say that they were just prayed over. On MANY occasions the timing was so much more than coincidental. It was Holy Spirit inspired.

Find out more about this app by clicking here:https://new.echoprayer.com/

One last resource and I just can’t tell you how much I love reading this book. Check out Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. It’s broken into three pieces: the Inward Disciplines, the Outward Disciplines, and the Corporate Disciplines. Foster takes the Word and speaks beautifully into the disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, and worship. I read this book yearly. So very good.