Learn How to Engage

God...

Thank You...that my head is screwed on straight. Thank you for giving me the ability to get along really well with people at work. Thank you for helping me keep a positive attitude, even when it doesn't make sense.

Help me...know how to handle challenging relationships at work. Help me learn how to engage in life more fully. Help me know what sort of housing situation to pursue in the spring.

Shane, I love you...I love how you're clean on the inside. I love how you size up situations accurately. I love it when you have those moments of awareness to think about me.

I'm sorry...for dwelling on a trouble spot at work; it's just not worth it.

Be with me...as I continue to walk forward at work, in life in general.

What Kind Of Soup Is It?

God...

Thank You...for the enjoyment I often feel at work--talking to people, untying knots, making decisions. Thanks for calmness and perspective; you're why I have a clear head (most of the time.) Thanks for the consistency of the two men in the class at City Rescue Mission. I know you've put them in my life for a blessing; thank you for drawing us together.

Help me...discern your current movement in my life. I sense you starting to stir the pot a bit, but I don't really know what kind of soup it is yet. Help my blind spots get exposed.

Shane, I love you...I love how open you are to me; I like living in your house.

I'm sorry...for being an inpatient jerk on the Broadway Extension this morning. I'm sorry for loosing perspective at the end of the day at work, for wigging over an insignificant thing. Both of these things show how I've got such a selfish, it's-all-about-me streak. I'm sorry for that.

Be with me...yes...be with me.

Nothing Too Earth Shattering

God...

Thank You...for a full and challenging day at work. It was fun to be in problem solving mode. Thanks for the surprise e-mail from a new friend.

Help me...learn how to encourage and build up my staff more. Help me find a unique living-in-community situation. Help me remain calm when situations tense up at work. Help me to learn to speak confidently yet calmly at all times.

Shane, I love you...that you don't take your work too seriously. I love how you take care of things thoroughly. You have integrity.

I'm sorry...for getting a little too riled up during all the fire-fighting today.

Be with me...in my awareness of each and every moment.

Be With Me As I Wait

God...

Thank You...for the rich variety of things I was involved with at work. I kinda gritched about it--but I really liked it. Again, more laughter. Thank you for helping me see the absurdities in life and helping me to laugh at them, rather than wig out about them. Thanks for perspective. And most of all, thanks for my friends at AA. What a gift those men are to me!

Help me...find my niche. Help me not always feel like a square peg in a round hole; help me fit somewhere! Help me get out of myself and in to other people's lives in a healthy way. Help me disentangle from the whacked-out thinking I inherited from my family.

Shane, I love you...You're more ok to me than you can imagine. I truly take deep delight in you; I want you to know this more and more.

I'm sorry...for getting riled up at the jackass at work.

Be with me...as you unfold my life-in-you. I usually want to rush things. Be with me as I wait.

Don't Settle

God...

Thank You...for the comfort of the men's honesty this morning at breakfast. Thank you that today was truly restful. Thank you for more fully redeeming my relationship with my parents.

Help me...find a focus for all the stuff I've been reading, especially those things having to do with community. Help me hear your voice leading me, even when the voices of people may rise to drown you out. Help me hear you and follow your leading.

Shane, I love you...I love that you're willing to go against the grain, even when you're not sure what the implications of this are. I love that you trust me.

I'm sorry...that your church is so messy and divided up. I'm sorry that as your people, we've placed more value on the things that divide us as your people, rather than simply being united around you. I'm sorry that I'm caught up in the middle of this travesty.

Be with me...as I seek ways to live out community the way you want me to. Be with me when I'm tempted to take the easy way out and settle for the "norm."

A Full Yet Restful Day

God...

Thank You...for a full yet restful day. Thank you for the long, rich conversation with my friend at breakfast. Thank you for the spontaneous dinner with my family.

Help me...wait to hear your Word to me. Help me connect wherever I need to connect. Help me not connect where I don't need to connect. Help me have wisdom to know where to spend my energies. Help me know what to do and when to do it. Help me be ok with where I'm at right now in life.

Shane, I love you...I love your openness to diverse people and ways of thinking. I love your willingness to seek to understand people who believe differently than you do. I love your stability of thought and your calmness.

I'm sorry...for projecting my struggles onto my sister. I felt like a twit for assuming that she struggles with the same things with which I struggle.

Be with me...during the SLOW, SLOW, SLOW process of having my roots grow downward.

I Feel Your Support

God...

Thank You...that on a rather hum-drum day like today, I feel your support. No spiritual fireworks or anything. Just your "being there" support.

Help me...give you room to be creative in and through me. Help me not be locked in by the known; help me be open to possibilities.

Shane, I love you...You are aware, watching. I really like that about you. My heart is so toward you, Shane. I wish you could feel how much love I have for you.

I'm sorry...for my loose lips at work. I'm also sorry that my eating and exercising (or lack thereof) has gone to pot.

Be with me...as I meet with my friend for breakfast and as I investigate the new rooming possibility.

Amen.

Merging Our Stories

God...

Thank You...for freedom at work. That my dad loves me and is kindhearted toward me. Thank you for your Son Jesus who is merging His story with my story, thereby building an intertwined relationship with me. Thank you that I don't really feel angry or pissed off at anyone. Thanks for giving me my friend Joseph. And thank you for raising up an "emergent" group in OKC; thanks for the hope of community and belonging.

Help me...be honest, be faithful, and keep growing. Help me know the Truth, and let it set me free.

Shane, I love you...and how you walk in the Way I lead you, no matter where the crowd is going. I love how you take things in and chew on them, extracting the good and the meaningful. You give me rich soil to work with. For this reason, I like to give you good things to chew on.

I'm sorry...for sometimes being timid, for not acting when I could act. For not knowing when I should act. For not going with my gut many times.

Be with me...as I explore new places and people. Just "be" with me--what more can I ask for?

Walking on Solid Ground

God...

Thank You...that I thought of You throughout today; that felt nice, like I was walking on solid ground. Thanks for another fit of laughter with co-workers. I felt very competent at work today, like I was taking care of business. And I knew You were with me in that. Thanks for the random lunch mate; it was nice to listen to him share his ideas about how to make our higher ed system better. I saw You in him, giving him Your perspective on life. Thanks for the friendship of the man running the grill; his extraordinary kindness to me enlivens my heart. Thanks most of all for your presence at the City Rescue Mission group tonight. You never cease to amaze me in how you can take four messed up, broken people like us, and somehow You are there with us. And we are made holy. I believed in You more deeply tonight than I ever have in my life.

Help me...to not worry what people think of me. There were a couple of people today who kept coming to my mind, and I keep thinking that I don't measure up in their sight. They probably haven't given me a moment's thought. Help me know what to do with those silly thoughts. Help me keep walking on solid ground.

Shane, I love you...YOU...I love YOU...EVERYTHING about you, I love...I love YOU!!!

I'm sorry...for being so rigid. I almost didn't sit with the man at lunch because I was going to look over the material for the mission group. I'm sorry my agendas and plans so often hold Your grace at bay.

Be with me...as I step out into new things, with new people.

Amen.

God Loves Schmucks Like Me

God...

Thank you...that work was fun today--I really enjoyed laughing with my co-workers and not taking work too seriously. Thanks for allowing me to randomly run into my sister at lunch--that made me feel comfortable, like I belong in this place. Thanks for the "meaty" work I had today; it felt good to use my head. Thanks also for the chance I had to sit and talk with several of our managers. I enjoyed building relationships with them. Thanks for all the bloggers in Oklahoma whom I've recently come across--I really identify with them. This makes me feel like I'm less alone; it makes me feel hopeful. And thank you most of all for the spiritual formation class tonight. I really loved the small group interaction with my two friends. We're so different, yet we need You so similarly.

Help me...get rid of the insidious pride that I'm only now beginning to see in my life. God, it causes the most awful clouds of anger, inferiority, fear, and hopelessness to envelop me. Please, help me stick my head above these clouds, encounter Your light, and get perspective. Help me get a grip--and be still. Help me see me as I am. Help me know your acceptance of me, and then help me accept myself. Clothe me with humility, like Jesus had.

Shane, I love you...I love that you struggle; you're not content to stay as you are. I love that you really, really want to know Me. I love that you're allowing Me to help you "lighten up"--and man do you need it :)! I love how you sat and talked with that fellow who dropped by your desk; you made him feel seen and human. I love how you've learned that you don't have to say every funny thing that pops into your head; you're learning that you don't need the attention that brings you. I love how you're maturing that way because it's a sign that I'm becoming you're identity. Shane, I see you, and my heart is toward you. I know all of your needs, and I will provide for every last one of them.

God, I'm sorry...that I've been such a prideful schmuck. I could grovel on and on about the many ways that has manifested itself in me, but that would be self-pity. So, I'll just say it again--I have been a prideful schmuck, and I'm sorry. We'll leave it at that.

Be with me...as I meet with people tomorrow at work and as I tackle the various tasks that await me. Be with me as I minister at City Rescue Mission tomorrow night. Be with me as "the clouds" explode in my head. Help me stick my head up above the clouds and encounter Your Son.

Amen.

Discipline--ugh!!!

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Well, I have come to believe he was spot on. As I've learned about the "art" or "practice" of spiritual formation, everyone talks about "the examen." St. Ignatius of Loyola said that if you can do one and only one spiritual exercise each day, do the examen.

Over the fast few years, a lot of different people have told me lots of different ways to "do" the examen. None of them have really stuck. But I recently came across a very simple way in the spiritual formation class I'm taking right now. It's a very simple approach.

I like simple. I can do simple.

Basically, I take about 15 minutes at the end of the day and pray the following to God:

Thank You...
Help me...
Shane, I love you... (God says to me)
I'm sorry...
Be with me...

So, here we go--let's see what happens.