The Journey: An Attentive Life

CategoriesJesus' Way by

Did Jesus practice work-life balance?

Jesus should have written a book about work-life balance. He didn’t, but he practiced something like it. The Gospels describe his pattern of movement, beginning with his baptism by John.

  • He knew who he was because he listened to God tell him, “You are my Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
  • From that identity, he moved into a busy ministry of teaching, preaching, healing, and confronting evil.
  • And he went off to “lonely places” to pray in solitude.

Spiritually, Jesus seemed to see identity, belonging, learning, worship, and rest as deeply interconnected. Teilhard de Chardin once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.”1 If he is onto something, we have been given a caution: do not overspiritualize spirituality. Eugene Peterson also cautioned us to remember that spirituality is primarily about life, life, and more life. Read More

CategoriesPrayer, Preparing Your Heart by

The Jesus Prayer: A Sacred Script for Everyday Souls

In a culture shaped by ritual and repetition, Jesus offered something radical and surprisingly intimate. In Jesus’ day, rabbis taught their students (disciples) a signature prayer that summarized their theology in liturgical form. 

 

When Jesus’ students asked for his prayer, he gave them something unexpected, a bold alternative to the structured liturgies of first-century Jewish life.  It was not simply a continuation of the religious status quo but a sacred disruption of their familiar, repeated prayers. In so doing, he reframed the spiritual imagination of all who would learn his prayer: the Jesus Prayer—a prayer not of performance, but of presence, a quiet cadence of intimacy. He taught his followers how to pray as other rabbis did, but more importantly, what it means to be heard by God.  It was a prayer not only for learned, professional religious folks but for all who want to grow in intimacy with Abba. 

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