Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Longing

Today I begin meeting with a new Spiritual Formation Group on Wednesday nights. What a trip this will be. We will journey together through the book Sacred Rhythms and see what God has in store for us. As a community we will share our hearts and learn to be real and open with each other so that the Lord can speak into our lives.

I am convinced that this journey is richer and fuller if we can begin by surfacing our longings. What is it that God has placed in you that keeps trying to rise to the surface, but you squelch. Ruth Haley Barton invites readers to begin exploring that idea early on in her book. Donald Miller, in Searching for God Knows What writes: "what if the deepest longings of your heart where there for a reason? small minded boxed-in formulas of modern religion weren't the Truth? the gospel of Jesus was not safe after all, but full of intrigue, passion and romance?"

Longings are sometimes scary to us. They involve us naming what we want. They may involve a "holy discontent" they may even make us feel unfaithful to what we have always known and done. I am excited by the prospect of seeing this group of women surface their longings!

2 comments:

preacherman said...

I hope and pray all is going well with you and your spiritual formation group. I want you to know that I am doing better physically. I still have good days and bad. I struggle with migraines but my minister is hypnotherapist and have been going to him for treatment and has been doing wonders. God has been blessing my life. I want to thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement Arlene. God bless you and will be reading your blog as regular as possible now. I hope you have a wonderful week in Christ Jesus.

LauraT said...

What a great post. I love Psalm 139 and that truth that He knows everything about us. Amazingly, because of Jesus Christ, he loves us anyway! We have full access to the Father and that is so freeing. I've found that I try to avoid being honest with God about my feelings. Imagine that? But he knows anyway. It is so freeing to go to him and pour my heart out. God bless you!