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Meditation is a much-discussed and yet much-misunderstood practice. Many modern Christians scoff at it because of its ties to Buddhism and because it has been embraced by secular spiritualists in the West as a means of "becoming one with the universe." 
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Do we really need to confess our sins? And what's a Baptist to do without a priest to hear confessions in a booth? The reality is that God knows what we've done; there's no hiding our actions or intentions from God. But spiritually, we need to demonstrate to God, ourselves and sometimes our family and friends that we understand we've sinned, we don't want to sin again, and we are committed not to sin again.
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Long before David Letterman made the "Top Ten List" a staple of late-night television, God gave the first Top Ten--carved in stone tablets and carried down from the mountain by Moses. Among the 10, number four--to keep the sabbath--seems straightforward enough. It just means go to church and then take the rest of the day off and relax, right?
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"Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
How often have we read those words and not really taken in their full meaning. It wasn't until viewing The Passion of the Christ that I fully understood their magnitude.
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We've all known someone who is a natural host, who graciously welcomes guests and will drop everything else to dote on them and make them comfortable. Their door is always open, and so is their heart.
These people have what is often called the "spiritual gift of hospitality" because through their natural graciousness they reflect and spread the grace of God. But hospitality is also a spiritual practice to which all are called regardless of whether we are outgoing or shy.
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The original lyrics to the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" speak of the freedom that comes with simplicity--achieving a "right" place and discovering "love and delight." It sounds so perfect, so easy, yet our human nature leads us to complicate things.
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Music is all around us. It's inherent in God's creation. Listen carefully, and you can hear it in the breeze through the trees, the waves breaking on a shoreline, the creaking and shifting of rocks in the mountains, and most certainly in the chirps and calls of birds. As the hymn says, "All nature sings, and around me rings the music of the spheres."
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Solitude. For those who seek it and are fortunate enough to find it, it's hard to hold onto. And for those who don't understand it and don't desire it, well, they're missing the joy of an intimate relationship with God.
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How often do we say, "The Lord is my shepherd" and "Thy will be done," and then we turn right around and try to shepherd ourselves into getting what we have willed to be in our best interest?
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The Bible is God's "guide book" for our lives. The old children's song says "the Bible is a story book," and that is true, but in those stories we learn how God loves and works with God's people and how we are to love and live with each other. The Bible teaches us about love, wisdom, worship, faith and ultimately God's authority.
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Fasting is a practice foreign to most evangelical Christians. We know it means abstaining from eating and it was practiced in biblical times. But the closest we come to fasting is for purely secular reasons.
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In all the great religions of the world, all the faith traditions, all the denominations, there is one common practice: prayer. Through prayer, we all long to reach out and communicate with our Creator, Lord, God, Savior.
Apart from the eternal nature of our soul, prayer is perhaps God's greatest gift to us. It is the special way for us to speak to God, listen to God and feel God's presence.
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On a trip to New York City, I lost my wallet and spent several hours on the phone canceling every credit card and membership I had. The goal was to erase my identity before someone else misused it. But this was four months after 9/11, and the new faceless me needed a copy of my birth certificate to board a plane for home....
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Healing is perhaps the greatest test of our faith. It comes at the intersection of our most powerful human desire--a long, happy, healthy life ...
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Loving one another is second only to loving God, and when we serve others in love, we worship God through obedience to his commandment ...
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We all face the darkness of death. For some, it will come expectantly in our older years, while others will face it sooner ...
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Worship is the practice of giving God the attention and respect only God deserves. It stands above all our other spiritual practices. ...
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