I'm culling old not-worth-keeping photos from my ginormous archives when I stumble on this one -- with the "Be Still" coffee cup next to a stack of books for morning devos on my backyard swing.
That backyard swing's been reduced to rubble and I'm not sure I still have that coffee cup, either -- it's not in the rotation of current favorites. {You have favorites, too, don't you?}
But I do still have coffee {iced coffee these sultry summer days, thank you} and devos on a newer backyard swing in the shade of the sweetgum trees.
Today I read the first chapter in Colossians, as I have every day this week, and I review my notes from the message this past Sunday -- a message I listened to online earlier this week. The pastor reminds me that maturity in Christ is a lifelong process that requires practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, reading and meditating on scripture, and fasting.
There are no short-cuts to maturity, the pastor tells me. Many of us don't practice the disciplines because we just want to go on about living of our lives. We don't take time to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us through prayer and Scripture. We don't pay attention, so we never mature.
The disciplines aren't a check-list, but an opportunity -- a gift really -- to put "living" on hold to be still and pay attention.
