Examen: Spiritual Disciplines

We have now entered the lull between Christmas and New Year’s. I have always enjoyed this time, as the activity of Christmas has mostly ceased but my daily schedule hasn’t yet returned to the normal routine. I can rest and spend time with family and friends.

This is also typically a time of reflection, as the year draws to a close. We remember all that’s passed during the twelve months, and we look forward to all that’s to come in the next twelve.

There is an ancient practice with invites this sort of prayerful reflection into our daily lives. The practice of examen uses a set of opposing questions to guide reflection on the positive and negative of each day.

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Compassion: Spiritual Disciplines

You can’t escape them—the rhythmic ring of their bells reaches your ears from the time you open your car in the parking lot. Then you must decide as you near the large doors if you will ignore them by busying yourself with your phone or smile and make eye contact. I don’t even know if I have any change. Will they expect me to put something in their large red money cauldron if I say hello? I doubt I’m alone in my general discomfort at running the Salvation Army gauntlet in and out of every store during this time of the year.

They aren’t the only ones asking for charitable donations. The majority of non-profits and ministries I know of ask for their supporters to consider a year-end donation, which means we are facing an onslaught of requests for our financial giving as we draw closer to December 31.

There is nothing wrong with this. Many people are moved to generosity by the joy of the season, and Ebenezer Scrooge has taught us that part of the Christmas spirit is thinking of others less fortunate. We fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child for children in far reaches of the world. We volunteer at a local soup kitchen or purchase gifts for Angel Tree. World Vision offers a wide catalogue of gifts, which can be gifted in someone’s name to a family or individual in need.

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Sabbath: Spiritual Disciplines

Does the Sabbath seem like a surprising spiritual discipline to be talking about this week? We’re down to a week and a half before Christmas, and it’s crunch time. There are last minute purchases to make and gifts to be wrapped. It’s the time of year for school productions and office parties which demand our participation or attendance. Churches put on special events, requiring practices and memorizing. We have a stack of Christmas cards to write to people we never otherwise communicate with. Some of us are preparing for travel and scrambling to finish work and personal projects before we leave home for the holidays. It’s a festive time of year and we want to enjoy it—but in the busyness, sometimes it’s about more than we can take. Sound familiar?

What if you would choose to refuse stress? To simplify? To rest? What if you could create space to be quiet, to be with your family, to reflect on Christ’s coming?

There is a strong human impulse to do. It keeps us moving, working, producing. Our lives fill up quickly with obligations and responsibilities, of which there seems to be no end. If we wait to stop once our to-do list is empty, we never will.

This is part of the beauty of Sabbath keeping—it builds rest into our schedules. We stop not because we’re finished but simply because it’s time to stop.

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Hospitality: Spiritual Disciplines

I sometimes joke that I have the spiritual gift of feeding people, and it’s true that more times than not, entering our home will result in some sort of edibles placed before you. It’s the way Scott and I are wired—to have people into our home and, of course, to feed them.

But is hospitality for everyone? Or just for those of us who find it enjoyable or part of our calling?

Some fall into the trap of thinking they can’t be hospitable because their home isn’t big or clean enough, or they aren’t a good enough cook. Others become crippled by a combination of perfectionism, pride, and comparison, concerned about not measuring up to the standards of others.

Hospitality, though, is about much more than good food and a nice house, in spite of its typical portrayal. Hospitality is not about what is provided as much as how it is provided. Hospitality is all about welcome. It’s about extending open arms to other people and inviting them into a safe and warm space. Hospitality is about expressing the welcoming love of Christ to others—both friends and strangers. So, the most lavish banquet in the best decorated of homes could express little of the biblical sense of hospitality based on the attitude of the host, but simple bread and water could incarnate the welcome of Christ himself.

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Waiting: Spiritual Disciplines

During one season of life, I hated a particular “dirty four letter word”: wait. I was an angsty college student, single but didn’t want to be, and desperately trying to discern the Lord’s calling on my life. To all my prayers, I continued to get the same response: wait. It came so often and in so many forms that it became a “dirty four letter word,” and when I would hear it again, I would groan. Be quiet, child, and wait—it was the resounding word, in the Scripture I was reading, in my prayers, in the counsel of those I trusted. Wait for answers. Wait for His timing. Wait for healing. Wait to understand what He’s doing.

I had a small strip of cardstock taped to my desk during this season, on which I had scrawled a short snippet of Hosea 6:3: “As surely as the sun rises, he will appear.” Because of the surety of God’s appearing, Hosea calls us to “press on to know the Lord.” We can wait for God, and we can come to know Him better in the waiting, because it is his nature to be known and not forever hidden from us.

I’m never sure whether to be comforted or terrified by the waiting we see encapsulated in the Bible—Abraham and Sarah waiting for a promised child, the Israelites waiting to be freed from slavery in Egypt, David waiting to finally become king, the prophets waiting for justice, God’s people waiting for a Messiah, the church waiting to see the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Waiting is not foreign to this journey of faith, and God is patient and moves on His own timetable, not our own.

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