Sometimes the intellectual life and spiritual life are needlessly pitted against one another. Dallas Willard reconciles the two in a timeless speech commending college graduates to embrace Jesus’ command to love God with all your mind:

How are you to fulfill this commandment? How else than by accepting the work of thought as the place where you will actually involve yourselves, as thinkers, as intellectuals: Yes, as intellectuals, Christian intellectuals, you engage yourselves, by faith, with the Holy Spirit, to throw back the framework of Satan’s lies and show forth the life which is the light of men in all of its cosmic, historical, and eternally redemptive dimensions.

Willard’s full speech is worth reflecting upon. Along with that, Richard Foster helps us understand this month’s focus: the discipline of study. 

“It’s a rich adventure,” says Sarah Bowling about fasting. If that’s not the first thing that comes to your mind about abstaining from things you enjoy, it’s worth listening to Nathan Foster’s latest podcast, which wraps up our focus on that discipline.