I’m writing this from paternity leave where my family has welcomed a wonderful, beautiful baby girl home…at 5 weeks old.

She spent the first 35 days of her life in the hospital where we found out she has a few things going on: Situs Inversus Totalis and something called Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia.

The first means that her organs all developed mirror-flipped from the normal person. Yes, that means her heart is on her right side, appendix on the left, etc.

She’s a little backwards, but I love her ;)

The second thing is something she will deal with her whole life that has made it a little more difficult for her to breathe on her own. She has a hard time clearing gunk and phlegm and mucus out of her lungs like you or I do.

So she’s home on oxygen for an indeterminate amount of time, but is otherwise happy and healthy as a clam! Her lungs will just need some help for a while (and, honestly, there is a potential for her to need oxygen the rest of her life, but that’s a worst case scenario.

…

And during this time, I’ve spent nights in her hospital room, sleeping on pull out couches or recliners, reflecting on things.

And I’ve spent time in prayer.

More importantly, I’ve spent a lot of time in the prayers of others. Because there have been at least hundreds, if not thousands, of people praying for my baby and my family.

The entire time, despite it all, (and lemme tell ya, there are a LOT of emotions and thoughts flying through your head when you have a baby in the NICU or a child that gets diagnosed with a chronic disorder or disease) I have felt peace.

I didn’t know what her life was going to look like. I still don’t.

But I knew that, no matter how I felt, I trusted that I was part of the prayers of others interceding on my behalf (whether I wanted it or not).

Through it all, I prayed a lot of “give us today the food we need.”

While my own prayers have felt lacking in the past several weeks, I can rely on the prayers of others and the prayers of The Lord’s Prayer to sustain me when I can no longer sustain myself.

And with that, let me encourage you: you are never praying alone.

I’ve said this many times, but having lived it out recently truly brought it home for me.

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Hello, all!

I know it has been a while since you have heard from me.

And, honestly, I wish I could say I was ready to jump back in and start working on Our Father Daily again…but I’m not.

A quick update: I have gone through a LOT of changes in my professional and personal life since January 2024. Started working full time in fall 2023 was a challenge, but new opportunities have arisen for me to climb the ol’ corporate ladder (which I am thankful for in so many ways). And that means finally getting to a spot, financially, for my family that we haven’t been in since 2020 (or, honestly, even before that). So, until some more of those things normalize, I’ll only be popping in occasionally to bring my absolute best to Our Father Daily!

NOW, on to the reason for this post!

It is the National Day of Prayer!

So, it’s a perfect time to chime in, take advantage of the calendar event, and discuss a bit about The Lord’s Prayer.

This is a special event on some of our calendars. You’re probably getting an email about it from your church, other Christian organizations, or maybe even seeing some posts on socials.

And while that is fine and dandy…

…the goal is for prayer to be a daily spiritual practice, right? And not a once-daily practice, but constant-daily practice!

While highlighting prayer on one specific day is powerful, our goal should be to make prayer a rhythm of our daily, moment-to-moment life.

…

With that obvious thought out of the way, let me give you something practical for today.

Today is a great day to pray big prayers.

Do you know why?

Because today is a chance to practice the inclusive OUR in The Lord’s Prayer.

The reminder that we never, ever pray alone.

And, today, I can promise you…you are not praying alone for whatever that big prayer is.

Today is the day to fervently pray for curing someone’s cancer, to pray for that job opportunity, to pray for the peace to overcome the death of a loved one, to pray for peace in our war-torn world.

Today is the day to join together with the myriad of voices calling out to Our Father for the Spirit to move in incredible, powerful, meaningful ways.

So, yes, make prayer a daily practice. But, for today, take advantage of the collective prayers of others and add your voice to the conversation, the cry of agony, the joyful shouts of prayer that are going up today.

We are not alone, we are never alone, in prayer.

Spiritual practice

Set aside time today to pray your biggest, most raw and real prayer. And do it with someone. Pray for that thing you are scared to even share with God, the thing you are afraid to pray about because you are afraid it might not be answered (or answered how you want).

Pray. Big. Prayers.

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If you find yourself interested in learning more about The Lord’s Prayer, then I would love for you to check out all things “Pray” by yours truly (me!)

Check Out "Pray" by Dylan!

Just stopping in for a quick one I was inspired to write. More news coming on getting back to a regular rhythm.

I learned a weird trick on how to make sure that you remember conversations and tasks…

…the “open loop” method.

You keep a task partially incomplete so that your brain is forced to want to “close the loop.”

Our brains naturally want to bring everything back into completion, so leaving it “open” means that you are going to come back and resolve the issue.

And this applies to your prayer life as well!

If you are wanting to create daily habits of prayer, then leaving “open loops” in your prayers will make it easier to come back to them later on.

As an example, praying about a situation that hasn’t been resolved yet will remind you to come back and pray again when that situation is resolved.

Just take the concept and move it into some quirky areas of your prayer life.

Pray about how you have a big job interview coming up and you’re nervous…but don’t ask for anything. Your brain is going to want you to come back and address that again. And, when it does, complete that prayer. Seek provision from Our Father in that job interview.

These can be as big of loops or as small of loops as you want, work them in however works best for you!

I like to use them to annoy my brain into wanting to have some resolution with big open loops because I find that I can push aside small things too easily.

You may find big open loops cause you too much anxiety in your prayer times. So stick to small loops instead.

My prayer for today

Our Father, help us find ways to remind us to pray at random intervals throughout our day. Jesus, give us some ideas about how to insert some open loops in our prayers with you. Spirit, remind us why we pray whenever we get these annoying nudges to pray some more. Amen.

Spiritual practice

Find something today that you can use as an “open loop” in your prayers for the day. And see if your brain doesn’t naturally want you to “close that loop” later on. And, when you are reminded of that open loop, close it and open another one.

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This isn’t the easiest for me to write out.

But it comes from a time of prayer this evening (at the time of me writing this out).

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a thing that pops up during those dark and cold months.

For those of us in the midwest, it can hit a little bit harder. For those of us just a tad further north, it can hit even more.

There’s a whole science behind the lack of sunshine leading to decreased dopamine levels and vitamin D, and all kinds of other things.

Either way, the point is that it makes it hard for us to feel some of those “good” emotions.

It makes it easy to feel like coasting, hunkering down in blankets, and staying inside forever…

…it makes you feel, ya know, sad…

It can lead to depression, anxiety, and other not-fun feelings.

And, for me, winter is always a tough time for me.

And I really try and power through, I genuinely like to try and keep a high-level of productivity and staying active to offset SAD (and feeling sad).

But, the older I get, the more tired I get of fighting off my feelings and trying to push through.

So I spent some time in prayer tonight about all of it…and I felt like the Spirit is stirring something in me to take care of myself a little bit more.

And that means doing (or not doing) some things that I really don’t want to…

…and, maybe you see where this is going, but it means pulling back on Our Father Daily a little bit.

My email about the future of Our Father Daily recently was written with all intentions to power through, keep writing every single day, and create some powerful content Monday-Friday for all of 2024.

But, while I am excited about doing more with Our Father Daily, I am also struggling a bit with where my body is at.

…

So, here’s what I am saying:

I’m going to take a hiatus from the “daily” part of Our Father Daily.

I will still be writing when I feel like I can and when I want to, but I don’t want to keep forcing myself to do this when it is causing so much extra stress for me right now.

A really honest moment here: I really struggle with being frustrated with myself when I should want to do something and just don’t and can’t rouse myself to do it.

And that means I have spent sometimes 20 or 30 minutes of fighting with myself, getting frustrated with myself, and trying to push myself to write (anything…anything at all) and that leads to me loathing myself for not wanting to do the dang thing.

And I hope that, even in the way I wrote this out, you feel my frustration at myself.

So…I’m sorry that I’m not in a spot to keep up the pace right now and I hope you all will forgive me.

It’s not the end of Our Father Daily, not by a long shot. But it is time for me to start easing off the gas until I can get out in some sunshine again.

And, again, I won’t be gone completely…but I won’t be sending out content every single day either.

Please, let me know if you have any questions or concerns in the meantime (I am genuinely an open book).

Praying for you, my readers, but also throwing out there that prayers are also appreciated on my end as well.

My prayer for today

Our Father, forgive me for not resting well and not resting in you. Jesus, give me the patience and resolve to show myself grace and forgiveness when I need to take a break. Spirit, thank you for moving in my life, even when it isn’t in a direction I like. Amen.

Spiritual practice

I hope that this serves a spiritual lesson for you: take care of yourself, pray through the difficult decisions, and listen for the Spirit…even when you don’t like the answer. I have to live my faith and beliefs out in this space, even when it doesn’t make sense from a business perspective.

And, if you are feeling that SAD has got you feeling a certain way because of the dark, cold winter…take care of yourself, my friend. And pray. It’ll help, I promise you.

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I watched my grandfather get down on his knees and pray while leaning against a chair by his bed.

That’s the picture I have of him when I think of him praying.

And I’ve seen him kneeling at the altar.

I was taught to kneel at the altar to pray…which meant that I thought I had to always kneel when I prayed.

And then I was taught to keep my eyes closed and my head bowed, but I could also pray while sitting down!

And then I learned I could pray while standing…and also without my head bowed, sometimes even encouraged to pray with my hands open, facing the sky!

And then…I learned that I could keep my eyes open!!!

My point is this: there is no singular prayer posture or stance that you absolutely have to use.

In fact, I would encourage you to re-think what it means to have a prayer stance or posture.

It’s more than just your physical stance, but also your environment, your surroundings, your emotional state.

For me, I love to pray in the shower.

And I love to pray with noise-cancelling headphones on.

I like to have the ambient noise drowned out.

It’s just my preference.

And I know I can always pray “better” when I have my prayer stance set up (with as much noise eliminated as possible).

But I also know that I need to be calm. So I breathe a few times before praying.

I need my mind to stop racing for a moment and my heart to slow, so I pace my breathing for a few moments before praying.

These are what I have found has created spaces in time for me to pray most “efficiently” with as little distraction as possible. To pray with intentionality and intensity.

It’s less about my physical space and more about my mental and emotional stance.

Play around with what gets you “in the zone” for prayer in these minutes and moments you have carved out in your daily life!

My prayer for today

Our Father, help me find what stance and posture works best to keep me focused on talking with you. Jesus, help me pay attention to what brings me closer in relationship with you. Spirit, keep me focused on praying more and more intentionally everyday. Amen.

Spiritual practice

Play around with some ways you can intentionally create some space in those minutes and moments you have set aside for prayer every single day. It could be putting on headphones, it could be a certain smell, it could be keeping your eyes closed, it could be taking some breaths. Play around and figure it out!

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I don’t think I had ever read/prayed a pre-written prayer (except for The Lord’s Prayer) in my entire life until my junior year of college.

Maybe I had, but I don’t recall any.

And then, in college, I picked up Common Prayer (an Americanized, modernized take on the Book of Common Prayer).

It’s a shortened version of the Book of Common Prayer and has plenty of pre-written prayers that you can, with some effort and repetition, memorize for your own prayer times.

And, while Common Prayer didn’t really “do it” for me (I eventually stopped utilizing it at all), it did introduce me to “rote prayers” that I could lean on with those times when I didn’t really know what to pray, how to pray, or just feel like praying.

So, if you want to start making prayer a daily habit as you focus on your spiritual prayer renewal, then I recommend finding some of these rote prayers to pull from as you start your journey.

And, not to hijack your spiritual journey, but I want to give you a few quick ones to start using as you get started.

Each of these can be general prayers or can be meditative prayers for you to think and reflect on as you pray them (which means they may not feel “prayer-y” but will lead you into prayer as you reflect and think and talk with God some more).

• “Be still and know that I am God.”

• “Spirit, may my words be your words, may my actions be your actions.”

• “Our Father, bless me, keep me, and give me grace when I can’t give myself grace.”

• “Jesus, help me be your hands, your feet, your heart, your mission.”

• “Give me eyes to see and ears to hear.”

Feel free to go and write down some of your own! I’ve written on that topic before here, too, so feel free to dig into how to write your own prayers out for the point of memorization.

Having some of these prayers in your back pocket that you have memorized can help you engage in prayer far more intentionally and simply.

My prayer for today

Our Father, help remind me to pray often but without adding extra pressure and stress on myself. Jesus, help me recall prayers when my heart isn’t feeling it. Spirit, give me words to speak when none are coming on their own. Amen.

Spiritual practice

The easiest option, of course, is to memorize The Lord’s Prayer! So, I highly recommend taking a crack at memorizing it…but also, feel free to memorize and use some of the ones here in this post.

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Let’s get this out of the way at the top…

…we all know that people say you should pray first thing in the morning or right before you go to sleep.

But, let’s be real, if you haven’t gotten into the habit of praying, then these aren’t going to work for a few reasons…

In the morning:

• You’re not going to want to wake up right away

• You are going to be too groggy

• You are going to forget

At night:

• You are going to fall asleep or drift off

• You aren’t going to remember anything you pray about as you faded into sleep

So, let’s just throw those out the window.

Do it when you are in a place where it makes sense (like after prayer has become a staple in your life).

When should you dedicate time in your day to prayer, then?

Here is what I suggest:

1. Find a time where you know you will be available for a moment or two pretty much every day

2. Find times for the days where your normal time doesn’t work, just make sure to set a time for each day

3. Set aside 1 minute to start, but don’t feel like you have to fill that full minute, just block it off

4. Every week, find 1 more minute in your day to block off and schedule time in prayer

5. (Best practice: set a reminder on your phone, calendar, palm pilot, whatever and follow through every single day)

Prayer doesn’t have to be hour-long sessions.

Moments and minutes add up, just like precious moments shared with your loved ones that you will cherish forever.

My prayer for today

Our Father, help us find moments to share with you. Jesus, give us the grace to recognize that even 30 seconds is better than zero. Spirit, help me find the space to pray every single day. Amen.

Spiritual practice

If you find yourself finding reasons to not find a minute to pray, ask a loved one where you might find a routine minute in your life to pray. I’m willing to bet they will find more than a few minutes for you ;)

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Well, you may have noticed that you didn’t hear from me last week!

And here’s why: I needed a break, a refresh, a renewal.

The end of the year was brutal for me on a professional level, and, on a personal level, I get drained by all the events and lights and visiting with people and trips and finances, etc., etc.

The holidays are not my favorite days.

So, coming into 2024, I wasn’t in a great spot to start writing without taking some time to make sure I was in a better spot emotionally, mentally, but also spiritually.

And that’s what I want to talk about this week: renewal.

The beginning of a new year is a great time for resolutions, right?

But what about your spiritual resolutions?

Kick off this year by dedicating some time and space and energy into investing in your prayer life!

And here is how we can get started doing exactly that by tackling some of the most common barriers that stop people from creating better prayer habits.

1. Make a commitment to pray daily

2. Dedicate one specific time every day

3. Memorize a prayer

4. Define a prayer “posture”

5. Create open loops in your prayers

We will cover each of these this week, but let’s start today off by making a commitment to pray daily.

I’m not saying you need to pray for 30 minutes a day. Or even at a specific time each day.

Just a commitment to pray, at least once, every single day.

Let that goal spur your spiritual growth. Not to create a goal to complete, but to create a habit that leads you into growing into a better follower of Jesus.

My prayer for today

Our Father, help me to communicate with you every day for the rest of this year. Jesus, keep reminding me and calling me to talk with you. Spirit, please nudge me more often and with more intensity to pray this year. Amen.

Spiritual practice

Write this down, “I will pray every single day this year.”

Putting it into writing makes it concrete. Feel free to keep it somewhere to reference throughout the year or throw it away. The point is to write it down to seal it in your memory.

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For this new year, I want to offer a prayer over and for you, my readers.

Our Father, thank you for your grace and mercy, your encouragement and challenges, your might and your comfort. Jesus, continue to walk with us into this new year, giving us the comfort for when we fall and the encouragement to keep following you when the going gets tough. Spirit, fill us, use us, let our words and actions be your words and actions. Amen.

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This is the last Our Father Daily for 2023, so I wanted to do a wrap up post.

First, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you for participating and being a part of the Our Father Daily readership. Your support means the world to me.

That being said, I wanted to highlight some of the “Greatest Hits” from this year.

However, before diving into that, I wanted to give you all an idea of what is in the future of Our Father Daily.

What’s next?

When I started Our Father Daily I was still running my content marketing business and planning on investing a lot of time and energy and resources into marketing my book Pray, the inspiration behind this newsletter.

Since launching Our Father Daily, my life has changed substantially—I’ve taken a major step away from “content publishing” (as I call it) and have moved into a full time role working with kids.

With that in mind, Our Father Daily takes a little bit more work for me to keep up with nowadays.

However, I am not giving up on or slowing down Our Father Daily.

I am, though, at a place where I need to be gaining something from my time, energy, and resources I’ve invested into Our Father Daily.

With that in mind, there are a couple of ideas I have banging around in my head about how to grow and potentially monetize some of the content that comes out of here.

One idea I have in the works already is to take some of my favorite posts, expand on them, and write a book about how to pray if you are starting out or new to the faith entirely. This would also end up being a completely free resource to subscribers of Our Father Daily, but might be monetized or possibly published in paperback at a reasonable price!

One thing I would appreciate those of you who have subscribed considering, though, is to “upgrade” to a paid subscription. This is the simplest way I can think of to “donate” if you would want to support the continued work of Our Father Daily.

Don’t feel like you have to, but the option is there! In fact, I’ll put it right below so you can check it out if you so choose!

Now, with that out of the way, let’s move on to the Greatest Hits from 2023!

Our Father Daily Greatest Hits

The most popular post from 2023, by far, was this one:

The 2nd most popular post from 2023 is honestly one of my favorites:

#3 of our Greatest Hits is my favorite I’ve ever written, and one that is near and dear to my own heart:

Our 4th Greatest Hit of 2023 was none other than:

And, to wrap up the Greatest Hits from the Our Father Daily archive:

I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Thank you all so much, again, for your love and support.

I am so excited to see what 2024 brings for Our Father Daily!

Our Father, thank you for the blessing of writing Our Father Daily this past year. Jesus, continue to use me and fill me with words that can help those learning to the spiritual practice of prayer. Spirit, let my words be your words. Amen.

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I never expected to learn a valuable life lesson from a Pokemon game, but let me tell you the story of Pokemon Sleep.

I may have mentioned this before, so forgive me if I have, but this is too good not to share again.

Pokemon Sleep is an app that Pokemon International has developed in an attempt to make a sort of “lifestyle brand” out of the Pokemon franchise.

They made Pokemon Go in 2016 so that people would go out, explore, and adventure outside.

Then, they made Pokemon Smile to encourage people to develop good toothbrushing habits in order to capture Pokemon as they brushed their teeth.

And, now, they have Pokemon Sleep which is designed to encourage you to develop good sleep habits and get more sleep.

And I loved all of it!

Here’s the unexpected thing from Pokemon Sleep, though…I started cheating…

What are ya gonna do, right?

I wanted to maximize my sleep hours…without having to actually go to sleep.

So I started “putting my phone to bed” before I would actually go to sleep myself.

This made it so my final hours before actually going to bed, I wouldn’t be on my phone at all.

No doom scrolling.

No screens five inches from my face for an hour.

And I would sleep so incredibly well.

But, I only experienced this because I did it every single night for 120 days before I started to realize the benefits of my new habit of “putting my phone to bed.”

This means that, in our prayer life, we have to commit to a habit for quite a while before we might start to really, deeply recognize the benefits of the habit.

So, here’s the big secret to praying often so that you can start reaping these benefits: remind yourself to pray.

Start making the habit to associate certain tasks, people, places, things, etc. with prayer.

Then, every time that topic pops up, you pray.

Here’s a quick example:

• You have a commute to work and your car is red.

• Every time you see a red car, you try to pray for safe travels for the driver (yourself included)

• Do this often enough, and it will become a habit of yours.

• Repeat for the vehicles of your family, then start praying for your family every time you think of them.

• Repeat

These prayers don’t have to be crazy long. Just short, brief prayers.

Do it enough, and I bet you’ll notice your commute to and from work is a lot more pleasant.

And, of course, remember to pray graciously towards yourself and God during all of this, too.

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for silly things reminding us to communicate more with you. Jesus, help us find ways to pray more often so that we can find ourselves praying constantly and continuously. Spirit, help us show ourselves grace when prayer is hard for us and encourage us to keep going. Amen.

Remember

Use the basics here to form your own triggers to help you think to pray more often. Then, actually do it! (And when you forget or don’t want to, don’t beat yourself up about it either)

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The secret to making your prayer life a priority is to practice being persistently consistent.

And the way you go about doing this is by:

1. Praying often

2. Praying graciously (towards yourself and towards God)

And this is where I have to admit something to you, my readers…

…I suck at being persistent.

I am a starter, but I’m not much of a finisher.

I love to get new things going, dig in, and keep up with it for a good while…

…until my passions shift or things become too boring for me.

This is a hard lesson for me.

So, let me just say this right out of the gate: I fully understand if you find creating a new habit or trying to be persistent with a task difficult.

I’m right there with you.

But, this is important because persistence is “doing something despite opposition or difficulty.”

And, for our prayer lives, I want to point out the elephant in the room.

Prayer is hard because it sometimes feels like nothing is happening or changing or, worse yet, things are only getting worse.

And this is exactly why we need to pray graciously towards ourself and God.

Things are going to be difficult.

There will 1,000% be opposition.

But the key is to give yourself grace and mercy.

Even doing the bare minimum is better than doing nothing at all.

…

There are days with all of my work and jobs that I can only see my kids for a few spare minutes here and there…

…and those minutes mean the world.

And God feels the same way, even a minute or two in prayer and communication with God is better than none at all.

So, don’t beat yourself up for not dedicating more time in prayer, just pray.

And don’t get frustrated with God if things aren’t going your way (yet), just keep praying.

My prayer for today

Our Father, give us the grace to forgive ourselves and to forgive you as we try to build a relationship with you through persistent prayer. Jesus, open my eyes to the ways in which I can pray whenever it pops into my head. Spirit, give me more opportunities to pray, and to pray intentionally for myself and others. Amen.

Remember

The point of praying graciously is to give yourself the space needed to keep praying, even when you aren’t feeling it or when you are frustrated with God or your prayer life. Give yourself heaps of grace, friend.

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I work in a childcare environment.

More accurately, I work at a childcare in a “fitness country club.”

Yes, it is bougie.

But I really love working with kids, I get to know a lot of the kiddos on a deeper level because, some of them at least, I have known for at least 4 years and see them just about every single day.

And, working at a gym, it’s about that time of year where people start making resolutions…and want to know what the biggest resolution on everyone’s list is every year?

Losing weight (or just “getting healthier”)

Which means, we see a lot more kids starting in January. And that means I get to meet the next batch of kids who might be around for the next 4 years!

But, that is only if their parents are one thing: persistently consistent.

They have to make coming to the gym a part of their daily life.

It has to be one of the things that they simply can’t go without.

And I’d like to advocate that prayer should be even more important than our gym routines (but that’s just me ;) ).

But…how?

It’s a fair question, and one that I will break down a bit more over the next two days. For now, though, let’s just put it this way:

1. Pray often

2. Pray graciously (towards yourself and towards God)

We all know that Paul instructs the early church to “pray continuously” in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17.

But, he also tells us to “rejoice always.”

And I think that rejoicing is something to work towards.

It’s hard to feel joy at all times, so starting by being gracious towards yourself when things aren’t great…and being gracious towards God when things aren’t great…is a great place to build consistency.

So pray as often as you think to AND pray graciously.

And that’s how you start to build towards being persistently consistent in your prayer life.

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for showing us mercy and grace and peace when our lives feel otherwise. Jesus, help us feel joy when we aren’t feeling it ourselves. Spirit, remind us to pray and give us the wisdom to pray whenever you prod us. Amen.

Remember

New Year’s resolutions can be flaky, but setting a goal for yourself to be both persistent and consistent attainable. Because all it requires is you to show up, give it your best shot, and then do it again the next day.

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Today is Christmas day.

The day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, God incarnate.

Take a moment today in thankfulness for what this means, that God loved us so much that God became flesh and bone, grew up as a child, went through puberty, had bills to pay as an adult, and everything else we know through the Gospels.

It all starts today.

God is good, all the time.

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Someone once asked me what my favorite holiday was. And do you know what I said?

Halloween.

And, in their shock, they asked me why it wasn’t Christmas.

My reply was that Christmas has become so commercialized that Jesus isn’t even the point anymore.

And, holy cow, can we talk about Christmas for a second?

This mysterious God I’ve been going on and on about this week was born.

The infinitely infinite and singularly singular God…the fully and completely and wholly divine Other…was carried for (roughly) 9 months and then born.

God.

In the flesh.

All of that infinite vastness of God, wrapped up in blood and amniotic fluids and sweat and humidity and probably covered with some dirt and hay germs and bacteria…

…all because God wanted to be with us.

And yet, we all get excited about flashing lights and fun wrapping paper and making a toy elf do funny things every night.

And the sheer…awesomeness…of the incarnation is staring us in the face.

I’m doing a poor job of putting my thoughts into words and, rather than edit and re-write and edit some more, I want this raw stream of consciousness to feel stumbly and fumbly.

Because I am struggling to wrap my head around what the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus means.

And we should be fuddled by this.

It doesn’t make sense on paper. It should be impossible.

And, yet, here we are…celebrating this absolutely insane moment in time and history…

…because God had a plan to step closer to us.

And that meant Jesus had to encompass God in the flesh (and points to what is coming in Easter).

And, especially at this time of year, much of our time in prayer should be spent praying in thankfulness for the incarnation of God through Jesus.

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for experiencing the breadth and depth of what it means to be human. Jesus, thank you thank you thank you for coming to us. Spirit, help keep this thought in front of us over these finals days before Christmas. Amen.

Remember

Take time, with someone, and celebrate and be thankful for God’s plan to become flesh-and-bone human alongside us, to wrap God’s vastness into such a small package. It’s powerful to share our thankfulness together.

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Now my secret is out, I love thinking on the mystery of God.

And one of those mysteries are prominently displayed in The Lord’s Prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.”

And that word “holy” packs a lot of depth, some of which I have explained before.

But let me share thoughts from a delightful professor of mine in college, Dr. Varughese.

Holy means to be set apart, but when it is used in reference to God it has a whole other mean. It means “separate.”

As in, God is in a separate class from anything we can identify on earth.

Even we humans are only made in the “image” of God, not the “stuff” of God, and definitely not on the same level of existence and reality as God.

When God is referred to as “holy” it means that God is completely alien to us, God is the ultimate Other. The most “other” being from anything we know and understand and comprehend.

We are finite. Therefore, God is infinite.

And yet, when you break down the intricacies of how our bodies and minds work…it’s so incredibly intricate that it seems we are made of an infinite number of parts and processes.

Yet God is infinite infinities.

On the other hand, a single human is nothing. God even said that it wasn’t good for humans to be alone.

Yet God is a single being. A singularly singular being with nothing like God in all of known existence.

And, even in that singularity, God is trinitarian. Three-in-one.

God is vast, God is Other, God is Holy.

Take a moment to appreciate that vastness.

And take a second moment to recognize that God, in all of God’s infinite-singular-trinitarian nature, wants a relationship with you.

My prayer for today

Our Father, I am in such awe that you want to have a relationship with me. Jesus, I cannot comprehend the depths of God, nor do I deserve to be in right relationship with God. But help me understand that God’s love isn’t built on a merit system. Spirit, remind me and speak to me the truth that God loves me in God’s vastness. Amen.

Remember

There are moments where I cannot sway from the Christian faith because I feel something so strongly. God’s love is one of those things. And the idea that our ever-expanding, seemingly-infinite universe is merely a representation of the glory of God’s vast nature and power and beauty.

Reflect on the big and small in your life. And then reflect on how God encompasses all that and more and still wants you to pray and talk with God daily, moment-to-moment.

Wow.

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During my college years, I started to deconstruct my faith that I had carried with me up to that point.

(And I use that term in the correct way, not the “I just want a good excuse to walk away from the faith” way)

I grew up affiliated with Trinitarian Pentecostal “vibes” for my Christian beliefs during my younger years.

And then I grew up Nazarene for my adolescent years.

But then, at some point in college, I was struggling with everything I had been taught starting to conflict in ways that made faith almost…inconceivable…to me.

So, I started from scratch.

I walked back my beliefs and poured over scripture more and more, leaning into the original languages, while studying other beliefs and theological frameworks.

One of those theological frameworks including diving into Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

And there was this beautiful concept that I had never been taught, never observed, in my Christian upbringing: the beautiful mystery of God.

Everything could be explained and theologized.

And, yet…here was a whole branch of Christianity that not only allowed for the divine mystery of the unexplainable and unknowable but encouraged their believers to revel in the divine mysteries of God!

Greek Orthodoxy, as an example, focuses on a lot of ritual during the worship service (this is called the liturgy for all who are interested in that kind of thing). But, there was one book that broke down each step of this worship service.

It explained, in detail, why the service moved in the way that it did, why each piece of the service was so important, the significance of the arrangements of the setting and tools and sights and smells and sounds.

While there was nothing magical about the particular way in which the service was organized, there was plenty that was reverent in the way there was an acknowledged mystery that happens when we worship intentionally.

God shows up, the Spirit moves, not just because of our emotional response to a song, but because of the 1,000 other times we have done this exact same thing and honored the practice of repetition to bring our hearts and minds to a place of focus on God, on God’s creation.

And, in that, God physically shows up alongside us in a way we cannot study, observe, or comprehend…but neither can we deny.

The same is true of the Catholic approach to the Eucharist, or Communion.

The elements become the flesh and blood of Jesus in a way we cannot possibly fathom or understand. 

And that’s not only okay, but they are encouraged to be excited by this mystery of God.

Whether you believe in the theological points of these two examples is irrelevant. 

The point is to honor and appreciate the mystery of God, the things we can’t explain, the ways in which God is very, very really and truly with us, in us, and around us.

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for not explaining every little thing to us. Jesus, give us a heart for your divine, holy mysteries. Spirit, help us appreciate the unknown and unknowable parts of God, just as much as the parts we know and understand. Amen.

Remember

You can appreciate the unknown when you appreciate the mystery of God. Because God is “Holy” and completely “Other” from us. So it only makes sense that there are things we absolutely cannot ever understand about God, God’s Kingdom, and God’s will. And it’s okay to not be okay with that fact, too. But don’t let that be a reason to turn from God entirely.

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If you are anything like me, then the unknown is simultaneously terrifying and thrilling to you.

I genuinely really enjoy having no idea what I am doing and just being thrown into something.

I have lived most of my life by the motto “you either sink or swim.”

I throw myself into projects I am wholly unprepared for and just start absorbing as much information as I can to give it my best shot.

Starting my own business in 2020 was an exciting time for me! But…if I’m being honest, I was scared out of my mind the whole way through.

I had a family to provide for and I had never done so much as take a marketing class in college. I knew absolutely nothing about SEO, copywriting, content marketing, etc.

And here I was starting my own business doing exactly all of that!

Then, I embarked on the journey of actually publishing my book, marketing it, and keep writing (still working on publishing #2).

I have spent a lot of time wading through the unknown (most of it I was gladly wading through it).

But, deep down, I spent a lot of time asking for God to just magically make things happen and to encourage me that I was doing the right and show me a sign that things were working or moving in the right direction and…

…I could go on, but I’ll stop there. I think you get it.

Because I realize now, 3 years into it, my business having basically collapsed to a small side hustle and my book just doing “meh” over all, that I should have spent more time praying for comfort in the unknown and just trust that God knew what was going on.

I’m not saying I did anything wrong exactly, but I didn’t do things exactly right either.

Again, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount to trust and rely on God, to not worry about the details, and to trust that God loves us and cares for us more than flowers and birds (and they seem to do alright).

So maybe praying for comfort through the unknown and just recognizing that the unknown is part of life…makes a lot more sense than trying to figure out what is going to happen next…

…just food for thought…

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for the way you have provided for me in the past. Jesus, thank you for being with me in the present. Spirit, thank you for comforting me as I move forward into the unknown. Amen.

Remember

The more you rely on God, the more the unknown becomes less intimidating. Because you know where your helps and sustenance comes from through it all. And doesn’t that sound…nice? Give over those fears to God in prayer with something like, “Our Father, I give over my restlessness about my future. I want to trust that you will provide for me, and I will do my best in the meantime.”

Give it a shot. What have you got to lose??

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I am particularly prickly when people insult my intelligence.

There isn’t much that I get feisty and defensive about, but feeling dumb is a sore spot for me.

I’m sure there is something in my past that has led to this particular behavior, but all that matters is that it has led to a reason that I feel such disdain for ignorance.

And I don’t mean when there is no way that you could no something, but when you definitely should have learned or known something and either ignored it or have forgotten it.

Listen, it’s not a character trait of mine that I think is super cool and has caused me many issues with my personal relationships…

…and it’s important to know this because what I’m about to say is even more shocking because of this information.

We are not meant to know everything.

In fact, we should actively be praying for our own ignorance!

And here’s what I mean…

…Jesus tells us, explicitly, that no one knows when the Kingdom will come in full.

So, right off the bat, Jesus makes it clear that we shouldn’t know everything.

BECAUSE IT ISN’T HELPFUL!

More importantly, we should question how much (if any) of the future is already set in stone…and why that even matters??

At the end of the day, we won’t ever know unless God decides to impart some special knowledge to us. So why stress about it?

Jesus tells us multiple times in the Sermon on the Mount to not worry about what the future holds, what we will wear tomorrow, what we will eat tomorrow, whether we will go into such and such a city and do X, Y, or Z. (paraphrase)

So, instead, we should be praying for our ability to be comfortable in our ignorance.

And while that might feel uncomfortable (because we all want to know how things will turn out for us), it’s really for our own good.

Whether the future is set in stone or totally open, not a single one of us really want to know what happens next. Because that makes every decision seem less important, less meaningful.

So ignorance, in this specific instance, is actually bliss.

My prayer for today

Our Father, help me be okay with not knowing what happens next, even when I really wish I knew if everything was going to be okay. Jesus, thank you for reiterating for us that our worries can’t add anything to our life and that we need to rely fully on you. Spirit, point me in the directions you have for me, for us. Amen.

Remember

As someone who has personally gone through…stuff…I know what it’s like to want to know how things will shake out. To know that you will be okay.

And it’s okay to want that, to feel that, and to still practice being okay with those feelings.

You aren’t alone.

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I am an introvert at heart.

But, I also genuinely enjoy being with people…they just exhaust, too…

And, on top of that, for a brief period of time in my life, I was convinced that I was called to be single. (but that’s a whooooole other story)

So the idea of relying on God relationally, socially, romantically…seemed like a no-brainer.

But didn’t feel like it made a ton of sense either.

How is God supposed to “complete me” in these areas of my life?

Well, there is a lot that I could say about why we need to rely on God in these areas of our lives, but what I want to hone in on is the how.

…

Because God is the one being in existence who is completely and utterly Other from us, there is no similarity between God and us, but…at the same time…we are made in the image of God and, therefore, there is also no being in existence that is completely and utterly interconnected with us.

The best way we can wrap our minds around this is with a parent and a child.

A child is completely different from a grown adult, their parent…but that child means the world to the parent and that parent feels deeply and inextricably connected to that child.

And the child feels a sense of that, too, but doesn’t fully understand it either. (At least, most of us don’t until we have children of our own)

So, how does this connect with prayer?

Because we need to be praying for relying on God at this deeply connected level.

Social and relational connections will never run as deep as our connection with Our Father, even if we don’t fully understand that yet.

In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17, Jesus prays for his disciples to know God like he knows God…

…Jesus prayed for his disciples to know God as well as God knows God’s self.

And that’s crazy.

And that’s what Jesus wants for us.

Do we even know ourselves as well as we think we do? Haven’t you ever met someone who seems to know you better than you do? How much moreso can God know us?

And we are supposed to pray that we can know God as deeply and inimately as God knows God’s self.

Reflect on that, pray about that. And pray for reliance on God in all aspects of your life.

My prayer for today

Our Father, thank you for knowing us more intimately then we can ever understand. Jesus, keep praying for us and with us. Spirit, thank you for your constant movement in my life to understand God and myself better. Amen.

Remember

The best way to seek reliance on God is to start praying regularly, no holding back. Make it a habit. Keep it a habit. Pray always.

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