Devotions based on Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

The season of summer is one spiritually of enjoying God and others without reserve. It is a time of warmth and rest and pleasure. We are not hurried, worried and it abounds in fruit.  We feel deeply alive and full of peace. God’ seems most visible and available to us.

It is a time to quiet our spirits and relax and become freshly present to God. “Endless busyness is earwax against God’s voice and a blindfold to God’s presence.”   But stillness reawakens our wonder and attunes us to His voice.

We’re not in a hurry and trying to prove any thing. In fact, it is a time when we might try new ways of meeting God…example a new place to have our devotions etc.

In summer season we see that God is good, near and for us. It is a time when we relish the abundance of God’s provision. We delight in the abundance we have rather than looking for more bounty. That is so far from the world’s way that chases what they lack rather than enjoy what they have.  The abundance that we do have is increased as we give it away. ( Like the little boy with the 5 loaves and 2 fish)  Wealth is only wealth when enjoyed and shared. Let us live in the mode of giving and thanksgiving!  In summer we must guard against dehydration. We dry out quickly and need the continuous inpouring of the Spirit and a deep saturation in the Word. We need to drink often or we get into spiritual complacency.  Let us give God the best of us and then we will reap His best for us.

Devotions from Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

I have always liked summer season best and spiritually it is a season of  warmth, fruit, light, rest, wonder, joy. It is a time of sheer delight in God and what He’s made. It is so opposite of winter and is a time when God and others are so intimately near, light and life surround us, and mourning seems to flee away.  Life seems effortless, and joy and light shine everywhere. We have energy to spare. It’s very much like when we first come to the Lord and everything seems right, bright, new etc. God is at the center.  But we have to guard our heart in summer against the wiles of nostalgia .  We may try to cling to summer’s beauty and resent when it fades.  And we all know that the past was never as clean and bright as we remembered it.  We can get wistful and bitter when the past won’t return.  The past is actually only reconciled through thankfulness, forgiveness, acceptance and repentance. Christians can be especially nostalgic about the church of our first summertime season. We think of it a holier and truer than wherever we are now. We remember the former glory most vividly and may want it to return. Memory is a gift to tell us where we are, and where we need to go but it can also be a trap where we can get stuck. Let us be quiet and ask Him to search our hearts for any places we are stuck or hurts that need His healing so we can move on.

Devotions based on Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

The first activity of Spring is to wake up, to get loose, and to leap forth. Let the winter’s losses and sorrows break down into something useful and life-giving. Once awakened Spring demands of us to plow, plant and clean. We need to do our part and to break up the hard soil of our hearts and take advantage of God’s renewing work. An unplowed field is a wasted field and we must not miss an opportunity for a crop.  Plowing represents attentive listening to the Lord in order to obey and to bear fruit in season. It is good to have holy habits like prayer and reading the Word.  We also have a role to play in sowing and planting. We need to plant our seed and establish disciplines that help us grow.  Spring is the best season for launching new things!  That may mean a new ministry for us.  And finally we need to clean and air those spaces that have become cluttered and dirty.  This may mean getting rid of the old and the things that clutter our lives.  He can help us distinguish the habitual from the purposeful, busyness from real productiveness, fruitless from the fruitful etc. One way is by a prayer practice called the Examen which is like a personal inventory.  A simple version of questions is to ask yourself at the end of the day, “When was I most alive, most present, most filled and fulfilled today? And when was I most taxed, stressed, distracted and depleted today?”  The examen can help us sort out and discover how to use our time and energy.  So let us go ahead and plow, plant, and clean!

Devotions from Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

After we have been through the bleak Winter season, the cold lifts and God changes everything, bringing us into Spring.  Where death has reigned, life triumphs and we live in hope.  It could happen suddenly and we may feel joyful and experience emotional renewal, physical renewal, and moral renewal.  In our new found emotional renewal  we find our confidence in God is restored and our mood is one of cheer. The wounds we took are healed and it seems the Lord vindicates us. As we are renewed physically we may find our energy returns and we can focus with clarity. Often times we may be experience healing of a lingering illness that overflows from our emotional renewal. In spring we may also have a time of moral renewal.  It’s like God gives our hearts and lives a thorough cleaning and takes away bitter roots, areas of compromise etc. In Springtime God renews our spirit and the road that used to be hard and lonely now seems quick and easy.  We find delight in reading the Word, pray with a sense of intimacy, and experience the joy of the Spirit.  More tomorrow…..

Devotions based on Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

The winter season of our souls calls us to some good work – praying, pruning, waiting; and it also gives us good gifts.  It gives us the opportunity in reimaging our lives. That doesn’t mean we indulge in some fantasy of escape but rather we see our lives in their truest light.  We see them for that they really are and know what really matters and what doesn’t. Maybe the best gift of winter is that it makes us heavenly minded. It breaks our addiction to this worldliness and helps us to anticipate the things that are unseen.  We may begin to see that our trials are “light and momentary”. We are not made for this world.  I think we will find that the winter season of our soul is not just something to endure but is a season when we are fully alive and come closest to Him.

Devotions based on Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual rhythm

When we are in the winter season of our soul there is work in winter that only winter knows.  Like prayer. Prayer is the ongoing work of winter. But we may pray not because we know and see what God is up to, or because we feel God is good to us at that time. Instead we pray because we are anchored in God’s revelation of Himself in scripture that He is good. We may be going through some very difficult circumstances where we have to walk by faith and not by sight.

 But what better ground is there for growing in our faith? 

Another work of winter is pruning.  Initially pruning makes us unsightly and feeling useless. But it is a time to look closely at all of our tangled branches of our life- like projects, hobbies, obsessions, diversions etc that are not bearing fruit in our lives. It is time to let go of the useless activities and come into simplicity.  It may be a time to lose the weight of unneeded responsibilities so we can bear more fruit.

Another work of winter is waiting as winter forces us to wait. It may be a time when we feel God is indifferent or absent to us. He doesn’t seem to show up or leaves things unchanged….maybe even lets them get worse. But waiting builds faith and we find out that He has been with us all the time in the darkness, in our grief, in our bewilderment.  WE may not see Him until we arrive at the other end but all the while our roots have been going deeper .   Then our faith is based more on who God is, and not our circumstance of the moment.

Devotions from Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

The season of winter is bleak, cold, dark and fruitless. It is a time of inactivity, more night than day and never seems to end. We would like to run from it, disavow it, or deny it.  Sometimes it feels like it is our personal failure, something we have caused. But it is a season and there’s no preventing of it.  Most people around us don’t help us and may give us pep talks and that make us feel even more alone. Things we found stimulating or pleasurable no longer have meaning for us, God seems far away or too near- aloof in his heaven and we feel He is hidden.  Our hearts may feel closed up and our dreams buried. It is different than depression as depression is triggered mostly by something internal whereas winter is triggered mostly by circumstances. ( In the author’s case it was the death of his assistant pastor). .” But every heartache and hardship and the loneliness such things bring, has a back door.  They allow us entry into a communion with Christ we don’t usually experience in our days of ease and song. Most of us have had our deepest encounters with Christ not on mountaintops but in the valley floors.” More tomorrow on Winter..

Devotions based on Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

This book is about the 4 distinct seasons of our soul within us. There are seasonal rhythms like flourishing and fruitful, stark and dismal, cool and windy, etc. The seasons have nothing to do with age and seldom the person.  Our responsibility is to know the season and match our actions and inactions to it.  The author went through a winter season where he had to walk without sight and to believe even in the absence of evidence and emotions. He found that all seasons are necessary for growing, and inactivity has as much to do with growth as activity. He noticed that busyness bruises and  stunts fruit as much as grows it. For everything there is a season (from Ecclesiastes) and eternity hides beneath the guise of each season’s beauty.  What we go through is only a dress rehearsal for what is ahead…eternity.  God walks with us in all seasons and when all is done takes us home.
Let us cooperate with God in the changes He wants to work in us in each season we go through.

Devotions based on an article by Stacey Benson

As we follow God’s call for our lives I’m sure we’ve all had our share of darts thrown at us by friends, family, and church people.  It may be hurtful words, judgments, criticisms, or untrue accusations against our character. We can respond by building  protective walls or we can let the Lord help us develop thick skin to not take everything personally.  It is important to keep our hearts soft and not place so much importance on how others treat us.  Ultimately, it is what He thinks of us that really matters.  We must let our focus be on Him and the criticism and judgments won’t sting so much. Rick Ezell says if we are in leadership we can react to criticism by: 1.Talking to God about it-take it to Him in prayer first. 2.  Learn from it. Maybe there is a little truth in it so we must shake out the kernels of truth and use them to help us grow. 3.  Use it to motivate us to greater action. Let it spur us on to greater accomplishments. 4.  Ignore it. Sometimes we must consider the source and just dismiss it and move on.  

Let us keep our eyes on the Lord who will lift us up and lead the way into the fullness of our calling.