Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God

I cannot believe I forgot to log this lovely book that I read in August (it was a busy summer). Jamie is a personal friend, and he has been teaching this for YEARS. It is so nice to have it in book form so a person can pray through it and learn, from God, about their identity and acceptance in him.

SO many people struggle with their identity, and this is such a helpful book for working through that struggle. 

I have recommended it to several of my spiritual directees (see what I do at Body and Soul Companion), and they have so benefitted from it. 

I went through it in a retreat form over two days. It takes about 10 hours to pray through it. 

It is worth every second! Highly recommend.

Celtic Daily Prayer

Another book I forgot to add to my blog (not my Goodreads page). I loved praying through this book for two years. I miss it. I have a Kindle version of it with recordings of the Northumbrian Community singing the songs. It is a four-year prayer book. So, I am considering going back for years 3 and 4!

It has morning, midday, evening, and compline prayer with scriptures, readings, meditations, and prayers for the morning and evening. It also has prayers for different occasions in the year. 

It is lovely!

Call Unto Him

Call Unto Him by Various
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

 So wonderful to be praying daily for my favorite part of the world! :) It has been a great year of prayer. 

How to Pray Week One - Chpaters 1 & 2: Prayer Everywhere and Keeping it Simple

Read:

Intro: How to Make the Most of This Book; Chapter 1: Prayer Everywhere; Chapter 2: Keeping it Simple

Key verse: “Lord, teach us to pray” – Luke 11:1

Summary points

· We can ask Jesus to help teach us to pray

· Prayer is like a toolbox – there are lots of different ways of praying

· Keep it simple. Keep it Real. Keep it up.

Questions

Q: What do you find difficult about prayer?

Nothing really. If I have to be absolutely positively honest. I LOVE to pray. I feel like it has always been pretty easy for me, and I love finding new avenues for an encounter with God. It is how I am with George too though. I love spending time with him. We don’t get tired of one another.

Q: What do you find easy?

God is always there to dialogue with (I talk and I listen – both in equal measure). God is the only one who truly “gets” me. That is what I find easy: GOD. He is so much more than I could ever ask or imagine. He is bigger than I could ever comprehend. He is more secure than any human being on earth. So, I can bring ANYTHING to him.

Q: Why do you think prayer can often feel hard?

I think I should pose this for others to answer because it has never “often felt hard” for me. Never. I am very thankful for this, but some of the people I have discipled or done spiritual direction with over the years, have found it difficult. So, I am on a quest to find out why this is hard for many people.

Here are some thoughts I have about this:

People can often be perfectionists. So, they think that prayer has to be a certain way. Or they are busy and cannot create space in their day for it. Or they might feel they have to do it in the morning, and they are not morning people.  Many people just don’t care to be connected with God.

George: Distractions. “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that.”  (Just write it down, and you don’t have to lose it.) Don’t plan it with the same priority.

I am uber RELATIONAL. So, it transfers over into my relationship with God. I will take in any way I can CONNECT to him relationally!

Pete says the best piece of advice is to “Keep it simple, keep it real and keep it up.”

Keep it simple: “your prayer life is at its best at its simplest”

Q: What do you mostly talk to God about?

I love to tell him how wonderful he is. I love to look at Scripture and respond to him from that. I talk to him about what I am needing to release, my consolations and desolations, I listen to him for direction and words of comfort and peace. I intercede on behalf of friends and loved ones. I lift up the current events and unreached people groups.

Keep it real: “Don’t role-play before God”

Q: Do you feel like you have to act a certain way before God when you pray? Why or why not?

Absolutely and positively NOT! He is all-knowing. So, there is no act that will be effective. He sees me just the way I am and LOVES me. There is no reason to hide. Also, Jesus reversed the Garden hiding. We can be out in full view of him for all the world to see!

Keep it up: “Don’t give up praying too soon”

Q: Do you find it challenging to persevere in prayer?

Nope. I do forget some things that I feel the LORD is telling me to pray about. Then I say, “Oh yay!” I think my shower crayon has helped. I have not been using that recently.

For the most part, I pray for a long time and it has been fun to see God answer some long-term things like peoples of the world coming to know him!

Q: How can we be encouraged to keep going?

Prayer mentors – Thank you, Sheryl Rice-Jury, Kathy Galloway-Allen, Helene Ashker, Ginny Bowen, Lorraine Fleishman. They were all such prayer mentors for me.

Prayer community – I have the privilege of being part of some awesome prayer communities of people over the years. Navigators were always really good about making prayer a BIG priority in everything we did. Both personal and corporate. Everyone was praying and spending time with God and sharing about what God was saying, and then we were praying together in one place corporately. ALL my leaders were people of deep and abiding prayer. Having the PUMP parties, TOAG prayer hours, Watchwomen, etc. I also liked that early morning group I had in the late 80s. 

Renovaré has also been great for prayer. Having been part of it since early on. It started in 1988. I read Celebration of Discipline in college (maybe it was on Rusty’s shelf when I housesat the summer of 1980?), and most of those disciplines were instilled in me through the Navigators, but Renovaré definitely reinforced it and reading through the Devotional Readings was helpful as I was exposed to excerpts of the giants of prayer in history. Reading Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home was also very instrumental along with E.M. Bounds, SD Gordon, etc.

Do It

Think about one way you’d like to grow in prayer and your relationship with God over the course.

I have had the goal to grow in Centering Prayer since early 2019 and will continue that. Reading The Sacred Enneagram in September of 2018 challenged me in this area. I had tried to read Basil Pennington's book at a prayer retreat in November 2018, but I thought it was not for me. Then we read the Cloud of Unknowing in the Renovare Book Club in Spring 2019, and I realized that God was already bringing me into this kind of prayer naturally during my colloquy times in the Spiritual Exercises and my afternoon times at the kitchen table when the sun was streaming into the room. So it didn't seem that unattainable when I realized that God was doing it naturally without reading Basil's book (LOL!) and that it was OK to let "kataphatic" (a prayer that has content; it uses words, symbols, ideas) of  Lectio Divina and Ignatian Imaginative Contemplation being the springboards to "apophatic" (a prayer that has no content; meaning emptying the mind of words or ideas and simply resting in the presence of God) because it is the natural "Rest" portion of Lectio Divina! Then I downloaded the Centering Prayer App in May 2019, and I started having short times of Centering Prayer even apart from the "kataphatic" prayer times. 

Mercy Center Zooms have also been helpful because I sit in front of a screen with others holding me accountable to remain still and quiet:

http://www.mercy-center.org/ProgramsMC/CenteringPrayerOnline.html

Write down your goals, so that you can revisit them at the end of the book.

Practice each Prayer Tool from https://prayercourse.org/toolshed/ and write about my experience for each.

Sunday Freewrite

We enthrone you, Oh God.

Pray as You Go Meditation in Zechariah 9:9-10

A time of widespread rejoicing. YIPPEE is my first reaction.

What would God have to do to lead you to "rejoice greatly" in this way?

Not much. I feel like I am always having to contain my joy because it is too much for people sometimes. 


"His domination will be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth."

Ask God for what you need to meet the challenge of being a disciple:

Lord, that is not an easy question to answer. I need to pray and listen a little more about that one! 

Abbey Day of Prayer

I feel like it is Monday morning, but it is really Wednesday morning. George had one more day to take off for June. (Mandated five days by his company.) Four of them are/were for our two extended weekend getaways. So we decided to take the fifth one to go to the beautiful and serene Mount Angel Abbey.

This is my "Serene Bean" husband spending time with God overlooking the valley floor. 

I have brought all the "My Lord and Me" Journals since 2014, but I only looked over the last full day of prayer on December  31, where I evaluated the entire year. I was still a bit blown over by the tongue lashing I got on December 23, but I looked at my evaluation of the year, and it was lovely overall other than that particular thing (and my son being suddenly laid off from his career job). And yesterday's day of prayer was a continuation of the peace and presence of God. It was lovely. 

I "considered the lilies" as I looked at the beautiful splashes of color everywhere at the Abbey. I have gone there in all seasons, but I forgot how nice June is in terms of the flowers blooming. Because of Covid-19, we were not supposed to walk on any of the trails and to stick to the Stations of the Cross and the top Abbey grounds. So I did not get to see all the beautiful flowers at the lower trail ring. Next time. I wanted to honor their rules. It was lovely to just sit and ponder the peaceful setting. 

Then the wood chipper went roaring. I could handle the chain saw when we first got there because the tree they were pruning was around the corner near the residence hall for the monks, but the wood chipper was right near us in all its loudness! I thought what an analogy of the world today. It is roaring and loud and overwhelming. I wrote:

 Lord, my heart has to calm down a bit. The turmoil is like the roar of that wood chipper in the background. It was starting to grate on my nerves. Now, it just wound down and drove away. . . Lord, our world is in turmoil right now. Yet you say, "'Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while'...They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves" (Mk 6:31-32). You are so good. With you, there is peace, God.

 Yes. Yet, my tree has been pruned through the uproar in our world these past weeks (and months, really). I tried to be a peacemaker on Facebook and to hear both sides of the issue for my opposing friends. But then I think it was time for the chain saw and chipper to drive away in my life. It was good to be in the quiet. 

God and I talked about the year, and how we are moving along in many ways, except one. That was a subject of much prayer and listening that has continued into this morning as my meditation in Finding Christ in the World: A Twelve Week Retreat in Everyday Life was in the Lord's Prayer and the admonition by Jesus to "keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking." The dialogue will continue because I want to grow in this one area, but "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit" (Zech 4:6). I think I have "worked on it" by my will and discipline, but I want it in partnership with him because that is only when a lasting change will happen. 

God also allowed me to dream a bit about the future. Doing this website has pushed me to really think through many things about what I really want. That is so Ignatian too! God is constantly asking me "What do you really want?" I want to grow from the inside out and companion others on that journey from the inside out. Contemplatives in Action. Set the world on fire. I said, "Let's do this together. I am passionate about giving all away, Lord." That is primarily all the things that I have developed over the years. Just on Monday, I had a life coach email me for a guide on how to spend a day of prayer because one of their clients was asking how to do it. I have that! I get asked all the time for things like this. That is what I mean by "giving it all away." I want to share the abundance of resources I have gathered. 

Further, in prayer, I asked more of what God wanted me to know. Philippians 3:13-14 came into the picture: 

Forget what lies behind.
Reach forward to what lies ahead.
Press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. 

With forget, I immediately thought of being blasted in December. All my older women counsel (Cammie, Carol, Joan, and Fran) asked:

• Why did you call in the first place?
• Why did you listen to 2 1/2 hours of false accusations?
• Why would you pick up poison ever again? (Cammie specifically asked me, "If you had poison on the counter, would you drink it every day?" Why no, Cammie!) 

Joan especially gave me some good tips about forgetting on March 2. So I am reminded to let my mind dwell on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute (Phil 4:8). They were mostly projections as my Mental Health Certification classes have reminded me. Empaths should steer clear. It breaks my heart to do that because I long for a connection, even with that person.

So, when someone tells you, you are a useless piece of nothing. Not worthy and "high" enough spiritually to associate with them. It is easy to stop and think, "I cannot reach forward. I cannot press on. I am worthless." But the voice of truth tells me a different story. I am a beloved child of God. I am a loved sinner. I am chosen for a purpose. 

So I reach forward. Forgetting what lies behind. 

Reaching forward without fear. 

I did feel sad yesterday. Sad for the sides. I feel like Switzerland. Sad for people who think you are not spiritual enough if you don't protest or do protest. RUBBISH. I'm just going to be me and 

SEEK THE THINGS ABOVE.

That was another big theme of yesterday (Col 3).  Seek the kingdom. 

After this, I read a chapter called "The Universal Presence" from The Pursuit of God by Tozer. Such food for my soul. PRESENCE was my word for 2019, and I think it is for 2020. I think seeking his presence is so key for me (for all of us) to living life in an incarnational way. George and I talked about that in the middle of our time of prayer. I am going to reread this book this week at the cabin. 

Then, I went to midday prayer with the monks of the Abbey. I know mass is closed to the public, but this was open, and it was lovely. They sang through Psalm 71 and 126. So I meditated on this afterward. 

When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion,

We were like those who dream.  (Ps 126:1)

George and I talked later about a return to the Malay world. that would be so lovely. We are praying. 

Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. 

He who goes to and fro seeking, carrying his bag of seed,  

Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, 

bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps 126:6)

We had a lovely day until it got very hot at about 1:30 pm (and the bench I was sitting on was starting to rotate my pelvis). So we thought it might be cooler at Minto Brown Park. We walked and prayed, but it was 90 degrees there and, unlike Mt. Angel, no breeze. So, we decided to finish our day of prayer at home in the air conditioning after stopping by the Grain Station in Monmouth for a very late lunch. George got into a talk with the recently graduated quarterback for Western Oregon University. 

I am still praying about doing a "light" training with Simple Steps, Inner Life Growth, and tips on Cross-Cultural Communication.

God gave me this summer for REST - REFLECTION - RESTORING and going deeper with him. He said, "Let's walk together." I think I have been doing too much "scanning" lately. Looking for approval in some new groups I have joined. Wanting to be "let in" so I feel like I belong when I already belong. God is calling me to my Type Four Healthy Inner Room for a while! 

To conclude my time, God said in the gist, "It is all going to come together. Be free. I'll bring it all to you." 

So I am reaching forward and pressing on. Flying free "careless in the care of God." 

Selah.