Hi, its Wendy Timm here and I’m interested in how your “spiritual discipline” journey is going.
I’m so excited to be “Cultivating Life” with my NSAC family. As humans, it’s always easier to join arms and do things together as a team. That is why Jesus kept emphasizing discipleship and community – it’s all about sharing life together. Well I filled in my card at church two Sundays ago and decided that I wanted to spend more time studying the word of God again. I also wanted to reclaim some lost areas of my life. Something that I have really treasured during other seasons of my life are prayer and journaling and so those were two things that I put down on my card to commit to.
Fortunately at this time, I am involved in the amazing Ladies ministry which meets on a Wednesday (If you are available, join us!). I am also involved in a home group and another bible leadership study. These different study groups have provided me with material to use during my “Cultivating Life” adventure. The difference has been my commitment to not just fill in the material, but to spend time during the day “chewing” on it. I often cover study material, but I don’t often ask the Lord to speak to me about the material. I am always in a rush, rarely slowing down for long enough to let the words sink in and change me. These past ten days, I have found myself regularly stopping and recalling what I have studied and asking the Lord to show me how to reflect what I have learnt in my life.
I love prayer, but have gotten so lazy in this area of my life. This series has rekindled something in my heart and as I have studied His word more and I have been spending more time in prayer. This has’t been the “on my knees” kind of prayer, but I have been stopping more often to just give things over to Jesus.
So often I think of people and wonder how they are. This week when He puts someone in my mind, I have been stopping to pray for them, rather than to just think of them. I have not gotten to the journaling as of yet, but I have gone out and bought a journal, so that is step one!
I am so glad that I filled in that card, although this commitment is making me feel somewhat counter-seasonal. Instead of preparing for winter, I feel a bit like a bear stirring after a long winter sleep. In fact I sense that there is more than a stirring going on, I sense that my spirit is awakening...