A common practice I use in my God time is called “palms down, palms up”. I found it originally in Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster, in the chapter on meditation.
Palms Down, Palms Up
The Prayer of Examen
A few months ago I found the prayer of Examen. Originally taught by St. Ignatius, it’s more of a prayer structure than an exact prayer itself. There are lots of variations on it. I like to use the prayer occasionally at night, a little before bed, to examine my day with God.
Prayer Collage
Here’s a creative idea for your God time. It might be especially helpful if you’re crafty or a visual person. Make a prayer collage!
Here’s the idea: Get a bulletin board, or a large piece of construction paper, or a piece of cardboard. Then find pictures of your friends and family and people you want to pray for. Print them out if they’re on your computer or phone. Don’t have a good picture? Go on their social media and get one. Once you have your pictures, attach them to your cardboard, etc. Now if you’re crafty you can decorate it up real nice. If you’re not crafty, don’t worry about it.
Sleep Hygiene
My daily God time has been the most important part of my spiritual formation journey. A key part of enabling myself to do that was modifying my sleep routine to ensure I could get up that extra hour earlier for my God time. Good sleep hygiene has helped me here. Here’s my thoughts and experiences with getting better sleep.
The Lord Is Always With Me
Warning: This post contains a brief mention of suicide.
Coming to know that God is always with me has been a key part of my spiritual formation. In my first 51 years on earth God always seems distant, if he seemed to be there at all. That was despite believing him and being saved by him for 30 years. Only recently have I come to know, deep down inside me, inside my heart, inside my bones, that God is always with me, always caring about me, always loving me.
Jumbled Thoughts: Key Verses
Some verses that have been important to me.
Continue reading “Jumbled Thoughts: Key Verses”Jumbled Thoughts: Random Wisdom
An unorganized list of bits of random wisdom I’ve collected recently.
Jumbled Thoughts: God Time Things
- Review recent learnings in journal
- Envision Psalm 23
- Envision new scripture
- Write good memories
- Read good memories
- Praise/adoration
- Listening/silence
- Sit and listen to God (5 minute timer)
- Grateful things (said or journaled)
- Prayer walk
- Write/say how I’m feeling
- Writing out a prayer
- Read bible
- Prayer for others
- Affirmations
- Listen to worship music
- Visualize a bible passage
- God time songs
- Deep breathing
- Tom’s prayer
- Hands up hands down (this some explaining)
- Feel my body (this some explaining)
- Safe place (this some explaining)
- Ask: How would you encourage me? What do you want me to know about myself?
- Write a poem or psalm
- Anxiety grounding exercise
From Friend #1
-Write how I’m feeling
-Three things I’m grateful for
-One positive thing about my career
-Written out prayer (I feel like it helps me be more focused and its been nice to look back and notice where God answered specific prayer requests that ive written about)
-Set a 5 minute timer and try to listen to God. I sometimes ask for insight on specific things like I prayed for you and jenny and then felt like God prompted me to share a song with her, so I just sent that over after the timer went off. But I just open the floor to God and try to listen more than I speak during that time for either hearing the Holy Spirit speak through me or give me an image of something or encourage an action or thought
-Read my Bible and currently doing the mini swedish method with a friend where we share what stood out, what it tells us about God and how we can apply it to our lives with each other
From Friend #2
1. “Beg for light” – Ask the Spirit to illuminate his presence in your day and speak to you.
2. Review your day with God – Playback your day like a video recording in your mind?s eye, looking for signs of God. Rejoice in the moments when you said yes to him, and repent of the moments when you said no.
3. Pay attention to your emotions – look for God in the undercurrents of your heart. When did you feel close to him? Far away? When did you feel joy? Sorrow?
4. Pray what you got! – Pray one aspect of your day back to God?a sorrow, a gratitude, a need.
5. Renew for tomorrow – we’re so aware of all we did not get done, as well as all our failures. In prayer, we just give these over to God’s mercy and ask him for the gift of rest
Amos 5:6 