Spiritual Formation Articles

How to Live with Open Hands

Using the first Beatitude of Jesus as a guide, Mark Scandrette invites us to move from close-handed worry to open-handed trust.

Mark Scandrette

July 13, 2021

A Hurry-Free Life

Does “relentlessly eliminate hurry” mean embracing an inefficient life? Carolyn Arends explores if it is possible to work quickly without being in a hurry.

Carolyn Arends

March 1, 2021

How to Pray While Drowning In Doubt

Without pretense or platitudes, Tish Harrison Warren lights the candle of nighttime prayer to help us find a path forward in the darkness of doubt and grief.

Tish Harrison Warren

January 26, 2021

Broken and Whole

Steve Macchia encourages us to own, rather than reject, our brokenness, and release it into the hands of a very loving heavenly Father.

Steve Macchia

January 1, 2021

When COVID-19 began, Carolyn Arends noticed something weird: people were crafting. They responded to chaos with cosmos. And regardless of our artistic ability, all of us are made in the image of the Creator and instilled with a desire to create order and beauty.

Carolyn Arends

January 1, 2021

Finding God at the End of Our Rope

Dallas Willard was right, says Lacy Borgo, “God’s address is at the end of our rope.” To stay centered and connected in seasons of struggle, she invites us to pray the Psalms and to play as a “stubborn act of hope.”

Lacy Finn Borgo

December 16, 2020

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Contemplative Rhythms for an Exhausted Life

Rich Villodas observes that “our lives easily can take us to the brink of burnout.” He invites us to ponder: “What if there were a rhythm of life that could enable us to deeply connect with God, a lifestyle not dominated by hurry and exhaustion but by margin and joy?”

Rich Villodas

September 15, 2020

God’s Crash School

“Hitting my own bottom of depression,” writes Juanita Rasmus, “has enabled me to come to an amazing awareness: I had been sourcing my life from an illusion.” That awareness led her to find the source of her being and life is not in self-made rules but in Christ.