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The human body is capable of many ways of knowing. We have neurons in our heart and gut regions in addition to the neurons in our brain. Also our 10th cranial nerve connects the brain and body with a 2-way communication system. And because we have experience before we have language, we have stored memories that influence the way we interact with the world but are not necessarily part of our awareness.

So if we want to be faithful followers of God in our unique lived experience… 

how do we know we are on God’s path?

Sometimes visual images, songs, poems, and other artistic forms can be helpful in bringing our automatic (or unconscious) motivators into our conscious awareness.

Remembering that the human body is capable of many ways of knowing, begin to think of characteristics you’re looking for when discerning whether or not an experience is of God. This time we will use language to raise our awareness of how we connect to God.

The Christian faith includes a deep tradition of bearing witness to our unique experience of God in the holy journey of our life. There is a reason you picked the 1 adjective out of the 10 originally chosen. Write a 50-word story to organize your thoughts around why you picked this particular adjective as a significant characteristic when discerning whether or not an experience is of God.

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

This week:

• Every day pay attention to when you notice God at work in the world.
• At least 3 times this week, jot down the who, what, when, where, and how of the experience.
• After noting the experience, write 1 adjective to describe the emotion you felt when you witnessed God at work. As a bonus consider where in your body you felt that emotion and make a note of that too.

What’s the difference between change, growth, transformation, and transcendence? To make sure we are all on the same page, it’s helpful to begin working from common definitions.

Change = to make different in some particular manner

Growth = progressive development

Transformation = to change in composition or structure; 

outward form or appearance; character or condition

Transcendence = exceeding usual limits; 

extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience

How would you complete the statement: Change is ______________? Why?

Like a musical score in a movie, music has the ability to capture the essence of a season of life. Sometimes it’s a favorite song. Or maybe the lyrics speak to the details or emotion of your experience. Sometimes is just feels as if there’s a soundtrack to life. Music is another pathway of knowing. Music holds the capacity for transcendence, to take us beyond the details of our experience and give us access to meaning in ways that language and logic fail to capture. 

Consider that music might further our understanding of how we experience God at work in our life, and name the tune for the musical score of:

• your childhood
• your high-school years
• your young adulthood
• your current life stage

First time: Read the text out loud and pay attention to any word or phrase that catches your attention. 

Make a note of that word on paper.

Second time: Read the text out loud again and consider the question, “How does this Scripture inform my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ?” 

Make a note of any response that you discern in this reading.

Third time: Read the text out loud again and consider the question, “What in this Scripture do I hear God inviting me to do or to change?” 

Make a note of any response that you discern in this reading.

Liturgy is a work performed by the people for the benefit of others. Similar to music, liturgy is a way in which words capture the essence or emotion or meaning of our shared human experience. The act of creating liturgy can also further our understanding of how we experience God at work in our life.

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

This week:

• Every day pay attention to the changes you experience in your own life or you personally witness in another’s life.
• At least 3 times this week, jot down the who, what, when, where, and how of the experience.
• After noting the experience, comment on whether or not you could see God at work in/through the change. Why? Or why not? As a bonus consider whether or not the change could be part of a transcendent process.

a slow emotion, not fast like anger, fear, or lust. It takes a moment for love to remember what matters, to gain perspective, to orient to a bigger picture, to acknowledge a need, to ask for help. 

The energy of love requires access to more of our brain, which makes us more creative and more connected, coherent and integrative, not isolated. Love helps us make sense of our experience and connect moment-to-moment events to our larger autobiographical life story in a way that helps the story make sense, in a way that is healing, in a way that leads to wholeness.

1. How do you show love to someone you love who has hurt you?
2. How do you show love to someone you don’t know very well who has hurt you?
3. What makes you smile?
4. What makes you laugh?
5. How do you play? With whom?
6. How do you know a response is loving?
7. Where do you feel love in your body?

Complete these sentences:

To feel loved they need:

To feel love I need:

Consider how God shows love in the world today.

“When children feel safe and secure, their curiosity automatically kicks in and they want to learn about the world. But before they set off to explore, they need to feel they have our full support to go out and discover their new world.”  [Hoffman, Kent. Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child’s Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore (p. 58). Guilford Publications. Kindle Edition.]

The human need for a secure base and a safe haven don’t diminish as we move toward and through adulthood, but we do get better at hiding our needs when we think the need might not be met. Sometimes we get so good at hiding our needs that we might have trouble recognizing we have a need at all. We also get pretty good at exploration and independence when our experience suggests it’s not always safe to be vulnerable and seek comfort.

Click on the Greater Things with David Ford link and watch the 6:25 video.

Greater Things with David Ford

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

This week:

• Every day pay attention to the changes you experience in your own life or you personally witness in another’s life.
• At least 3 times this week, jot down the who, what, when, where, and how of the experience.
• After noting the experience, comment on whether or not you encountered the energy of love in the experience. Why? Or why not? As a bonus, consider whether your response was fast or slow, and where did you feel it in your body?

“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.” Exodus 3:2 

God was present to and transformed Moses’ rage via the pathways of:

• law
• priesthood
• prophecy

When the brain detects a threat to a need or something we strongly value, it triggers our survival response and sends us into fight, flight, freeze, or faint. Our thinking brain goes “off-line” for a time. Watch Dr. Dan Siegel's Hand Model of the Brain. 

Pay attention and notice how the emotion feels in your body when you:

• are angry
• are afraid
• want something to happen in a particular way (lust)

Notice the location of the feeling, the strength of the feeling, the persistence of the feeling, and anything else that draws your attention. Just notice.

In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy we can see the pathways that God provides to transform Moses’ rage over the oppression of the Hebrew people into freedom within a lawful society. 

• Law establishes guidelines for what constitutes rupture of relationships with God and with humans as well as guidelines for repairing those relationships.
• Priesthood provides the mechanism for repairing relationship with God and with community.
• Prophecy uses anger to fuel action and generate courage in the face of power as a pathway to create a more just society.

Watch the excerpt from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop"

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

This week:

• Every day pay attention to the changes you experience in your own life or you personally witness in another’s life.
• At least 3 times this week, jot down the who, what, when, where, and how of the experience.
• After noting the experience, comment on whether or not the experience alerted you to something that matters to you. Was there a rupture in a relationship? Was there opportunity for repair?

“But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Have no regard for his appearance or stature, because I haven’t selected him. God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the LORD sees into the heart.’” 1 Samuel 16:7

Actions involving Power:

• Dominate = to exert the supreme determining or guiding influence on.
• Collaborate = to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.
• Authorize = to endorse or empower by a recognized process or structure.

Definitions from m-w.com.

1. Who has power in the text?
2. How did they get it?
3. How do I know whether or not the power is from God?

Watch "Power With" from Brene Brown.

After viewing the video, reflect on your response to the following questions:

1. Do you agree that love and threatening are mutually exclusive?
2. What are the characteristics of a church exercising power with or power among?
3. Are you using your power over others or with and among them?

What differentiates getting things done in a way that bears witness to God’s power and getting things done in a way that draws attention to the work of human hands?

• Cause Thriving ~ “The one who so delights and muses on Yahweh’s torah (the lawfulness if reality) will be like a tree transplanted alongside creek beds. …Like a tree which gives fruit in season. Its foliage does not wither. Everything this tree makes causes thriving.” (An interpretation of Psalm 1:3 by Dr. Boyd Whaley.)
• Act with Humility (not arrogance or pride) ~ “But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave.” Matthew 20:26-28, NRSV.
• From the Heart ~ “God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the LORD sees into the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7b, NRSV.
• Integration ~ as a scientific concept suggests harmony. It is a marker of health and refers to an action in which differentiated parts are connected in a way that honors their unique qualities without becoming either rigid or chaotic.

Can you think of other ways of knowing that God is the source of energy when something gets done?

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

This week:

• Every day pay attention to the changes you experience in your own life or you personally witness in another’s life.
• At least 3 times this week, jot down the who, what, when, where, and how of the experience.
• After noting the experience, comment on whether you witnessed power with or power over. What characteristics/qualities informed your decision?

A study of the Hebrew scriptures bears witness to the ways in which God works within the human story.

• Transcendence (Genesis 1-11): God is at work in the transcendent process of creativity
• Love (Genesis 11-50): The family as the place where love and compassion are learned
• Wisdom (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers): Prophecy, Priesthood, and Law flow from Moses’s rage
• Power With (Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings): authorizing power, not overwhelming dominance; power with not power over

Read Jonah 1:1-6 in the style of Lectio Divina.

First time: Read the text out loud and pay attention to any word or phrase that catches your attention. Make a note of that word on paper.

Second time: Read the text out loud again and consider the question, “How does this Scripture inform my understanding of what it means to answer God’s call?” 

Make a note of any response that you discern in this reading.

Third time: Read the text out loud again and consider the question, “What in this Scripture do I hear God inviting me to do or to change?” 

Make a note of any response that you discern in this reading.

A supportive community is necessary in the discernment process, and is a vital source of accountability and encouragement on the path toward saying “yes” to God’s call.

• List up to 5 people you believe would be a helpful resource in the discernment process.
• List up to 5 people you believe would hold you accountable in your journey with God.
• List up to 5 people you believe would encourage you, celebrate your wins, and support you in your struggles in your journey with God. 

What do you need these people to do so you feel empowered to say “yes” to God’s call in your life.

What are your barriers to “yes”? What prevents you from saying “yes” to God’s invitation?

The spiritual journey is a discipline, and requires intentional practice. 

• Every day pay attention to when you notice Got at work in the world. And find opportunities to share your stories.
• Consider starting a gratitude practice.
  • Keep a journal and each day make a note of three things you are thankful for; or
  • Each night at dinner share a gratitude, a challenge, and how you are handling the challenge as a check-in with family or friends; or
  • Include naming the things you are thankful for as part of your morning/evening rituals.
• Consider a devotional practice.
• Consider a mind-body awareness practice like Tai Chi or Yoga or Mindfulness Meditation.