Strengthening Our Inner Being

I pray that, according the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit . . .” (Ephesians 3.16b)


My mother teaches school.  She’s on block scheduling, so for an hour and a half each day she has planning period.  She learned a long time ago that part of her planning period must be devoted to writing letters to people in her community.  Hand written letters.  Not emails. She believes in the art of handwritten letters, and by spending her time writing to other people she strengthens her inner being.

I had a professor in college, he was the epitome of ‘absent-minded professor,’ but every day he would shut and lock his office door at lunchtime, take off his shoes, and eat barefooted on the floor.  He argues he is never as close to God in any other moment in life than in that time.  The intentionality he gives in the thirty minutes on the floor strengthens his inner being.

A friend of mine spends every Monday evening taking yoga lessons.  She says that the combination of concentration and strength as well as the added level of discipline helps her strengthen her inner being.

What I have noticed about my mother, my professor, and my friend is that they all live out of their inner being.  They are so well connected with who God has made them to be that they can’t help but live out of this strength.

On some level or another we all desire to be this way.  We all want to get closer to God.  We all want to move out from the circumference of our lives and deepen ourselves to become more centered.  We want to feel whole instead of frazzled, secure instead of incomplete, and present instead of absent.  We just have to figure what connects with the divine and start implementing it into our lives.

What I love about my mother, professor, and friend is that they incorporate communing with God as a daily ritual in their lives and they all do it in different ways.

There's not a one-size-fits-all way to doing spirituality.  You know you better than anybody else and you know what your body/soul needs.  Start there and figure out how it realigns you to the divine and implement it into your weekly schedule.  Just think how amazing it would be to know you are growing, maturing, hoping, striving, enjoying, partaking, investing, and strengthening your inner being!

And as a pastor, I can't help but to remind you that the church can be a catalyst for this growth, a conduit for this change, as well as hold you accountable on this journey.  At least that's my hope for the church – that it genuinely attempts to strengthen your inner being by creating avenues for connecting with the divine and growing in the grace of God.

Ephesians reminds us that we must strive to strengthen our inner being -- how do you plan to do just that?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Difficult Parable Ever

Image
Theologian N.T. Wright finds the parable of the fig tree to be quite strange.  He says, “Jesus' warning in Luke 13 is at once amplified by this almost humorous, yet in fact quite sinister, parable of the fig tree in the vineyard.” And it is sinister.  It’s a hard pill to take.  Jesus' parable goes like this: A man has as fig tree planted in his vineyard.  One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs.  He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree.  For three years, I've come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing.  So just go ahead and cut it down.  Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?” The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir.  Give me one more years working with it.  I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.  If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”...
Read more

The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Image
This Christmas I was moved by the words of Frederick Buechner.  For my last blog of the year I offer to you his wisdom rather than my own ramblings.  I hope it does for you what it continues to do for me. Frederick Buechner says in his book The Faces of Jesus: On the dark bulwark of Elsinore, Shakespeare has Marcellus and Haratio reflecting on Christ in the opening scene of Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairly takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time These lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all.  We tend to think time is just progression . . . as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar measures.  But we ...
Read more

Sacrificing Joy

Image
I have been told my biggest weakness is I take myself too seriously. I agree. But here is my dilemma: My life is filled with responsibilities and deadlines. I go to school, pastor a church, assist my seminary in their admissions process, and feel obligated to be a good friend. My school takes up twelve hours a week plus roughly twenty hours of study. I work at least 10 hours on my sermon and spend two days a week with my congregation. Fifteen hours of my week is given to the McAfee Admissions Office and every Saturday I play softball with some friends. With this schedule I am up to 57 hours of responsibility time plus two days are given to my congregants. Why do I do this you ask? Because I can. Because God is blessing me in it. Because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. All of these shape an identity for me. And I love every second of it. We are all busy people. We all know what it is like to work the extra hour or sign up for one my volunteer role. We all over...
Read more