While I’ve been down here in Daytona Beach at New Staff Training I’ve been struggling with meeting and spending time with the Lord. It just seems as I’m sitting in hours upon hours of meetings and I have very little down time this creates a situation where I’m not practicing spiritual disciplines. So this morning as I was sitting in a another meeting (I have a confession – I’m not excited that I have to sit in this meeting room at 8:30 am. I have been praying that the Lord would help me with my attitude.) I was surfing and I found a great little piece, from CJ Mahaney, about spiritual disciplines. I pray it speaks to you as it spoke to me. He was asked to describe his present practice of the spiritual disciplines and this was his response:
This wonderful means of grace normally takes place at the beginning of the day for approximately 1 hour. I agree with George Mueller’s approach to this important practice, “…that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.†And there is no more effective way to cultivate happiness of soul than to preach the gospel to myself. So my morning spiritual diet normally involves surveying the wondrous Cross on which the Prince of Glory died. John Stott wrote, “The Cross is a blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough for its sparks to fall on us.†So each morning I want to get near enough to the Cross so these transforming sparks will fall on my soul leaving me freshly amazed by grace and full of affection for the God of all grace. At present I am making my way slowly through The Gospel of Mark. I read and reflect on just a few verses each day. And I am studying Mark’s gospel with the help of James Edwards commentary The Gospel According to Mark and The Cross from a Distance; Atonement in Mark’s Gospel by Peter Bolt. By God’s grace sparks are falling on my soul.
You can check out the whole post at his blog.