Spiritual Disciplines Handbook Quotes

“In the unfixables of our lives we are invited to keep company with Jesus and take a risk that God's intentions toward us are good. Day after day this is what Jesus did. It is called trust. He calls us: 'Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly" (Matthew 11:30, MSG)”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“we keep company with Jesus by making space for him through a spiritual discipline. Our part is to offer ourselves lovingly and obediently to God. God then works within us doing what he alone can do. Our desires don't obligate the holy One. God is free to come to us in spiritual disciplines as he wills, not as we demand. But unless we open ourselves to him through spiritual practices, we will miss his coming altogether.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“When we are rested, we notice desires as well as lies buried in our souls.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“In the unfixables of our lives we are invited to keep company with Jesus and take a risk that God's intentions toward us are good.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“The spiritual journey is a marathon of seasons. Sometimes you can hold your own. Sometimes your side aches, you're hot and you can't get your breath. Spiritual disciplines are intentional ways to keep moving through the seasons. They aren't magical means to an effortless race. The disciplines simply provide us with exercises that keep us open to God and aware of the limits of our endurance.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“The world is filled with reasons to be downcast. But deeper than sorrow thrums the unbroken pulse of God’s joy, a joy that will yet have its eternal day. To set our hearts on this joy reminds us that we can choose how we respond to any particular moment. We can search for God in all circumstances, or not. We can seek the pulse of hope and celebration because it is God’s reality.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“Studying Scripture can equip, guide and reveal how to live in life-giving ways that deepen our friendship with God and others.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“God inhabits our bodies, delighting in every inch of us. Every eccentricity and peculiarity is received. Every longing and self-destructive habit is known. God knows us through and through and still wants to make his home inside of us. The fact that the Holy Spirit wants to abide in us is one way we know how infinitely precious and beloved we are. We are God's own prized possessions. Prized possessions are something you take care of.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“We have limits. There is a finiteness to our time and energy. And to live as though there isn't is destructive as well as delusional. It can be hard to tell the truth about our human capacity and limits because few of us want to accept the losses that come with this truth. We can't say yes to everything. We can't go everywhere and see everyone. We can't have it all. We aren't indispensable. We are finite beings who need rest. And that is not a bad thing.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“They simply put us in a place where we can begin to notice God and respond to his word to us.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us

“Disciplines done for the wrong reasons actually sabotage transformation and numb us toward God and the truth. When we use spiritual practices to gain secondary things like spiritual cachet, success, approval and respect, we rob the discipline of its God-given grace.”
― Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us