Walking with God and each other in his glorious creation.
This summer the meditations for our weekly Prayer Hikes are inspired by The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer.
Every Wednesday at 9am we will meet at the church and hike east on the River Trail or south on Bear Creek Trail for 30 minutes in silent meditation and prayer on a specific passage.
As we return to the church we will get to know each other encourage one another with our insights.
Schedule:
June 7 – Hurry: The great enemy of the spiritual life.
Consideration: Love, joy, and peace are at the heart of all Jesus is trying to grow in the soil of our lives. And all three are incompatible with hurry. Comer, John Mark, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, p. 25.
Meditation: James 5:10, 11 – 10 Brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name as an example of suffering and patience. 11 See, we count as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about—the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
June 14 – A Brief History of Speed
Consideration: After a millennia of slow, gradual acceleration, in recent decades the sheer velocity of our culture has reached an exponential fever pitch. (Especially with our addiction to the internet and social media on our pocket devices). What is all of this distraction, addiction, and pace of life doing to our souls? – Comer, p. 43
Meditation: Matthew 6:31-34 – 31 “So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
June 21 – Something is Deeply Wrong
Consideration: In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you give your attention to. That bodes well for those who give the bulk of their attention to him and to all that is good, beautiful, and true in his world. But not for those who give their attention to the 24-7 news cycle of outrage and anxiety and emotion-charged drama of the or the non-stop feed of celebrity gossip, titillation, and cultural drivel. (As if we “give” it in the first place; much of it is stolen by a clever algorithm out to monetize our precious attention.) – Comer, p. 55
Meditation: Matthew 16:24-26 – 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. 26 For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?”
June 28 – The Solution is not More Time
Consideration: Every day is a chance. Every hour an opportunity. Every moment a precious gift. How will you spend your time? Maybe better questions are; How do we live more deliberately? How do we slow down, simplify, and live deliberately in the middle of the chaos of the noisy, fast paced, urban, digital world we call home? Well the answer of course is easy: follow Jesus. – Comer, p. 73-74.
Meditation: Ephesians 5:15, 16 – 15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—16 making the most of the time,, because the days are evil.
July 5 – The Secret of the Easy Yoke
Consideration: A yoke is a work instrument. Thus when Jesus offers a yoke he offers what we think tired workers need least. They need a mattress or a vacation, not a yoke. But Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life, a fresh way to bear responsibilities…Realism sees that life is a succession of burdens; we cannot get away from them; thus instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment. Jesus means that obedience to his Sermon on the Mount [his yoke] will develop in us a balance and a “way” of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living. – Comer, p. 86-87
Meditation: Matthew 11:28-30 – 28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
July 12 – What We are Really Talking About is a Rule of Life
Consideration: What a trellis is to a vine a rule of life is to abiding (remaining) in Christ.
A rule of life is a way to organize all of your life around the practice of the presence of God, to work and rest and play and eat and drink and hang out with your friends and run errands and catch up on the news, all out of a place of deep, loving enjoyment of the Father’s company.
If your life with Jesus doesn’t have some kind of structure, a trellis, to facilitate health and growth, it will wither away. Following Jesus has to make it onto your schedule and into your practices or it will simply never happen. Apprenticeship to Jesus will remain an idea, not a reality in your life.
But here’s the rub: most of us are too busy to follow Jesus. – Comer, p. 95.
Meditation: John 15:4,5 – 4 “Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.”
July 19 – What are the Spiritual Disciplines?
Consideration: The spiritual disciplines are habits of our minds and bodies. The spiritual disciplines are the habits of Jesus’ life revealed in the Four Gospels. And like all habits they are a means to an end. The end of following Jesus’ way of life is life to the full with Jesus. The end is is to spend every waking moment in the conscious enjoyment of Jesus’ company, to spend our entire lives with the most loving, joyful, peaceful person to ever live. – Comer, p. 105-107.
Meditation: John 12:26 – 26 “If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”
July 26 – Silence and Solitude
Consideration: Here’s to tomorrow morning, six o’clock. Coffee. The chair by the window, the window by the tree. Time to breathe. A psalm and story from the Gospels.
Hearing the Father’s voice. Pouring out my own. Or just sitting, resting. Maybe I’ll hear a word from God that will alter my destiny; maybe I’ll just process my anger over something that is bothering me.
Maybe I’ll feel my mind settle like untouched water; maybe my mind will ricochet from thought to thought, and never come to rest. If so, that’s fine. I’ll be back, same time tomorrow. Starting my day in a quiet place. You? – Comer, p. 142
Meditation: Luke 5:15-16 – 15 But the news about him spread even more, and large crowds would come together to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.
August 2 – Sabbath
Consideration: Sabbath isn’t just a twenty-four-hour time slot in your weekly schedule; it’s a spirit of restfulness that goes with you throughout your week. A way of living with “ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace, and prayer.” A way of working from rest, not for rest, with nothing to prove. A way of bearing fruit from abiding, not ambition. – Comer, p. 172.
Meditation: Mark 2:27-28 – 27 Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
August 9 – Simplicity
Consideration: The truth is we can be happy right here, right now, “through Christ who strengthens me,”meaning through investing your resources in ongoing relational connection to Jesus. You can live a rich and satisfying life life whether you are rich or poor, single or married, infertile or counting the days until your four kids are out of the house, crushing it at your dream job or at a minimum wage J.O.B. Right now you have everything you need to live a happy, content life; you have access to the Father. To his loving attention. – Comer, p. 216-217.
Meditation: Philippians 4:11-14 – 11 I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. 12 I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. 13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. 14 Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.
August 16 – Slowing
Consideration: It’s wise to regularly deny ourselves from getting what we want, whether through a practice as intense as fasting or as minor as picking the longest checkout line. That way when someone else denies us from getting what we want, we won’t respond with anger. We’re already acclimated. We don’t have to get our way to be happy. Naturally this takes a while for most of us. – Comer, p. 225-226.
Meditation: Romans 5:3-5 – And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces patience/endurance, 4 endurance/patience produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
August 23 – A Quiet Life
Consideration: To live a quiet life in a world of noise is a fight, a war of attrition, a calm rebellion against the status quo. And like any fight, death comes with the territory. As does sacrifice. – Comer, p. 254.
In the years to come our world will most likely go from fast to faster; more hurried more soulless, more vapid; “deceiving and being deceived.” Will you traverse that road? Or, remember that there is another road, another way? Will you radically alter your life to take up the easy yoke of Jesus?. – Comer, p. 255-256.
Meditation: John 14:6 – 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
