These are some helpful guidelines to use when your prayer life feels lifeless and cold. Kairos Pastor Chris Brooks instructed us to use as many of these as we needed, whether all of them or just one.

I think #9 might need a little explanation. My understanding is that you can pray within a framework, like using the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) model while still allowing the freedom to pause on one part or sit in silence or go wherever the Spirit leads.

#11 might be hard for those who like to be seen as super spiritual. It’s humbling to confess to another that you need prayer for yourself, but even Jesus asked His disciples to pray for Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

#7 is best utilized in a park or on a nature trail or anyplace else where you can celebrate God’s creation. It’s refreshing and healing to be outdoors when you pray sometimes.

For #12, I personally use The Book of Common Prayer and on occasion, The Valley of Vision, which is an old Puritan book of prayers.

I believe prayer is a discipline, and the best way you improve isn’t by reading about prayer or talking about prayer (although these are good and helpful), but to pray as best you know how at every moment when you feel prompted to pray.

Just pray.

Yes, it’s Monday. Yes, it was cold and grey and rainy for most of the day.

It can still be a good day.

I had peach hot tea at Starbucks (and it’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite beverages). It goes good with Mondays and cold weather. Even if I did burn my tongue on it. It was worth losing a few taste buds.

Even Mondays can be good days if you look for the good instead of the bad in your day.

Any day you’re alive is a good day because being alive means that there’s still the possibility of the miraculous and the amazing breaking into your day.

Being alive means that you still have a purpose and a mission. It means God’s not done with you.

So happy Monday, everyone!

Now on to Tuesday.

I suspect that this is your prayer as well as mine. I further suspect that if most people out there who aren’t atheists are honest, this is probably their prayer as well.

Trust and faith are the antidote to worry and fear. The perfect love of Jesus still casts out all fear as we receive it and allow it to overwhelm us.

Imagine that– being overwhelmed by perfect love instead of fear? I want that.

Amen.

I’m all for new music and branching out and trying new things, but sometimes it’s good to go back to the tried-and-true classics.

I chose Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and Johnny Cash at San Quintin as my soundtrack for my traveling for the past two days.

For the Johnny Cash fan, you just can’t get any better than these two recordings. There’s an energy that fuels these recordings that I haven’t found in any of his other albums. It’s raw and fast and loud and counter-culture.

It blows my mind to think that 2018 marks 50 years since the recording of Folsom Prison. In my mind, that album holds up as well or better than anything since. It’s true country music that doesn’t sound like every other country music record out there.

I can’t recommend it highly enough, so of course I’m providing links to get both albums.

https://smile.amazon.com/At-Folsom-Prison-Johnny-Cash/dp/B000028U0Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1518148707&sr=1-1&keywords=johnny+cash+at+folsom+prison&refinements=p_n_binding_browse-bin%3A387645011

https://smile.amazon.com/San-Quentin-Complete-1969-Ncert/dp/B00004W17B/ref=pd_sim_15_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00004W17B&pd_rd_r=0SWDQYZMNNZ92N7B54S8&pd_rd_w=7cqJP&pd_rd_wg=lOXXv&psc=1&refRID=0SWDQYZMNNZ92N7B54S8

It’s 10:14 pm on a Wednesday. I’m tired. This is one of those nights when the creative juices have run dry. I even looked through my memories on this day from Facebook hoping to jumpstart something, but it was all for naught.

I say some days the best you can say is that I survived. Not that I had a particularly bad day. It was actually rather pleasant in a very unspectacular sort of way.

I just feel that we need to celebrate the small victories more. Like the fact that you and I are still here. That we showed up today and didn’t quit.

I feel that deserves a reward, like chocolate or a nap. I’ll let you decide which.

This is a fairly accurate rendering of what I look like trying to get up at 5 am in the morning. It’s not pretty, but I still manage not to roll over and hit the snooze icon on my phone.

I call that a win.

First off, congrats to Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles. They certainly deserved to win tonight, and Nick deserves to be the MVP of Super Bowl LII (which I assumed that he won since I left before all that).

Second, I admire and respect Tom Brady and the New England Patriots and the season they had. I’m not going to get caught in all the wave of people hating on Brady and Belichick and the Patriots. They got to where they are by having a fantastic front office who drafted  and signed the right players for each position.

I personally thought the commercials were improved from the last few years, particularly the one with Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr. recreating the iconic dance scene from Dirty Dancing. That was an instant classic in itself.

Last year, I drove to Spring Hill for Super Bowl LI. This year, I went to Hendersonville. I definitely have put in the miles on my Jeep for a good cause, although next year I’d like to stay closer to home if at all possible.

Who knows? Maybe those hometown Titans will be representing the AFC next year?

I’m aware that it’s a stretch, but stranger things have happened in the world of sports, especially in recent years. And after all, a sports fan can dream, can’t he?