the blue book is now available on amazon

Exciting News!  The Blue Book is now available on Amazon!  And not only that, but it also has a bunch of new content!  I've been working for the past year or so to write an opening reflection for each chapter and I'm really excited about the end result.  I hope you will be too.  So please spread the word.  Tell your friends that the strange blue devotional book that has always been so hard to find, is hard to find no more.

*Update: Thanks for the great response!  Glad to see the book still seems to be helpful to so many in making space to hear God's voice and know of his great affection.  Since the book has been released on Amazon I do, however, find that I miss the contact with many of you.  I miss hearing the stories of how God has used the book in your life or ministry.  So, if you have the time, I would love it if you would just leave your comments here, or drop by Amazon and give a review.  And, as always, feel free to email me with your Blue Book story if you'd like.  I love hearing them. Blessings, Jim

Get Ready for Advent

Just wanted to remind you that if you (or any of your friends, family, or coworkers) are looking for a companion to journey with you through the seasons of Advent and Christmas, you might want to try Watch and Wait.  It is available on Amazon.

sean

Remembering a remarkable and courageous young man today.  Amazing how spending just a few minutes with someone can have such a dramatic impact on our lives.  Apparently Sean did that to a lot of people:) I need to remember that in every encounter and conversation I have today.  Prayers to the Karl family, thanks for sharing Sean with us.

wait

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord. (Psalm 130:5-7)

Waiting is no easy thing.  In fact, it takes quite a bit of effort.  But effort in a much different way than we are used to.  There is a letting go that is necessary in waiting: a letting go of control and opinion and agenda; a letting go of strength and power and adequacy.  Waiting is the place where we have to come face to face with our inability to make things happen for ourselves.  Thus, it can be an incredibly humbling process.

But waiting is not only about letting go, there is also a taking hold that is necessary.  We must begin to embrace—rather than deny—our own vulnerability, dependence, and weakness.  For the scriptures clearly tell us that “When we are weak, we are strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10)  Waiting puts us in a place where we must confront our own nothingness and find that it is not an enemy, but a friend.  It has something of incredible value to teach us, if we are willing to listen. 

Therefore, waiting is never passive, but always active.  It involves the movement from clenched fists to open hands.  For clenched fists can never receive anything.  And, in the end, waiting is always about receiving.  It is about realizing that we cannot control or contrive or manipulate God into giving us anything, we must simply learn to wait with open hands to receive whatever he decides to give, whenever he decides to give it.  Thus, our hope is not in our own efforts, gifts, and abilities, but in his grace alone, which is always sufficient.

his kiss

let him kiss me
with the kisses
of his mouth
~song of songs 1:2


if it does not
start with a kiss
it starts awry

passion dries up
and turns to chore
affection deteriorates
into obligation
and romance 
becomes duty

therefore
let us first
receive his holy kiss
let us know
the intimacy of
his divine embrace
let us be captured
by the depth of
his great affection

and let that alone
determine
everything else

note to self

Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought.

Don’t try to sound like you know more than you do.

Live your life quietly and share your life humbly.

Be like a weaned child with its mother.

Don’t overestimate your own importance.

Don’t exaggerate your own significance.

Don’t promote your own indispensability.

Don’t fall in love with your own opinion.

The world will get along just fine without it.

The world needs your care and your presence

More than it needs your words.

So say less and love more.

something, nothing, everything

why do i 

keep trying to 

become something

when you

ask me to

become nothing

so that you might

be everything