So I have no full-time job. I have a family - a wife and four children. I am a pastor of a small church, with no full-time pay. What am I to do with my time?
Since I have quit my secular employment I have been well-employed, it seems, with everything else under the sun. The things I desired to do have oft been overtaken by the ill-famed "tyrrany of the urgent." Thus, I have decided - no, I believe I have been called - to do something drastic for 2009.
I have been taught that within one year the cells of a man's body are renewed (with few exceptions). This means that with the proper diet and excercise regimen a man can literally remake himself in a year.
I believe there is a spiritual principle in this. I will undertake a monastic-style approach to life this year in order to renew this man, spiritually, physically and mentally. With a family and a pastorate, I cannot go to the monastery, so I will bring the monastery home. This blog will be my daily account of that renewal.
Christopher,
ReplyDeleteMay your monastic meanderings prove to be transforming. When I was attending Oberlin College and out-of-my-mind-hungry-for-God-and-looking-for-Him-in-all-the-wrong-places,
I, along with about 15 fellow college students went to live in a Benedictine monastery for a month.
There is much to be said for the lifestyle, and I look back on it 36 years later with profound affection and gratitude toward God's far reaching grace towards me.
The cold, bleak Ohio farm country prepared me to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in Seattle six months later, and the discipline of the lifestyle is something I could stand to revisit.
I am excited for you as you take these steps, and may the Lord provide bountifully for you as you seek Him.
Blessings,
ali