Questions that Transform Us (Walking and Talking Spirituality #19)

Have you ever been asked a spiritually transformative question?

What were key questions that have shaped your journey of life?

Here are some of mine:

Rev Paul George asked my 17 or 18 year old self (1986 or 1987):

Have you ever considered the ministry?

Alex McManus challenged me when I was a young professor in
2005:

What business do you have teaching in a seminary if you’ve
never planted a church?

A few years ago, my daughter asked me:

Dad, why do you work so much?

The questions we ask ourselves play a determining factor
in our growth.

Are you open or closed to “hard” questions? 

Start your morning with some empowering questions:

For what am I grateful?

What is really bothering me?

What would make today great?

End your day with: What went really well today?

Be mindful of the questions that empower you and
questions that disempower you.

What’s on your mind today? What are some of the
best questions you’ve been asked or that you ask yourself?

#spirituality #questionsthattransform #questions #growth
#change #transformation #spiritualformation #spiritualgrowth 

50 Days of Formation and "KASHflow" (Walking and Talking Spirituality #16)

During this 50 day season of Eastertide in anticipation of Pentecost, what if we work on our spiritual formation so that we will be ready to be unleashed back into the world.

Embrace soul enhancing practices and mute your stress-relieving practices.

Borrowing an acronym from Dan Sullivan, let’s focus on  

on KASHflow:

Knowledge

Attitudes

Skills

Habits

Knowledge: How will you grow in self-knowledge? How are you presently consciously or unconsciously blocking the work of God in your life? What have you learned about God’s grace?

Attitudes: What attitudes do you need to cultivate in order to grow in love of God, neighbor, and self?

Skills: What new skills have I learned that I can continue to hone that will serve me in the long run?

Habits: What soul enhancing do I need to restart, launch, or double-down on so that I’ll be ready?

The world will reopen friends. A new dawn will appear. Spring will come again. Will we be ready?

Lessons from a Stoic and Jesus about Living in the Present

This is Episode #9 of Walking and Talking Spirituality with Dr. Brian Russell
Seneca (in Letter #5) from Letters from a Stoic talks about the problem of being lost either in the past or in the future rather than being present. He writes, “A number of our blessing do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.”
I like Seneca because he helps me to think clearly about my interior life. Many Christians through the ages have found the Stoic writers (in particular Seneca and Epictetus) to be helpful.
Seneca hits a key theme that can hinder us in our spiritual growth. It is not only a Roman Stoic who can be trapped in the past or in the future. So can we.
Jesus taught us to realign continually in light of the good news of the kingdom of God (see Matt 4:17). What does it mean to realign or repent? It means to recenter ourselves on the ethics and mission of the kingdom of God. In essence it means to follow Jesus moment-by-moment. When we find ourselves focused on a past pattern, we realign with Jesus. When we feel anxious about the future, we realign with Jesus.
Try a prayer like this:
“My past is forgiven in Christ; my future is secure in Christ; so I can live and breathe and move moment-by-moment in the abundance of this new day.”
What do you do to stay centered in the present so that you can serve the world that is right in front of you rather than one that you remember from the past or one that you hope to encounter some day?

Who is My Mission? (Walking and Talking Spirituality #7)

This is episode #7 of Walking and Talking Spirituality with Dr. Brian Russell.

Mission is always about people...

Don't ask "What is my mission?" Asking what creates an abstraction.

Instead, ask/pray: "Who is my mission?"

Avoid the danger of answering "everyone." The deeper answer isn't "everyone" but "someone".

Become an ambassador of God's abundance by living as the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of Jesus to the people in your proximity.