Devotionals to Build Spiritual Discipline
Devotional / Produced by TOW Project
Practicing Gratitude (Devotional)
Back to Table of Contents Back to Table of ContentsGratitude is a spiritual practice that helps you notice and appreciate God’s work in your day to day. In this plan you’ll learn 4 different techniques for making gratitude a part of your daily life.
You can find this devotional on the YouVersion Bible App (download the app here), or get the Practicing Gratitude plan on Bible.com
Excerpt:
Gratitude is a spiritual practice of seeing and celebrating the good in the world around you. This is easier said than done.
Modern life often forces you to focus on what is bad – what needs to be fixed immediately, what crisis must be prevented, what new thing you need now to make your life better.
Learning to notice the good takes practice. Thankfully, every time you flex your gratitude muscle you get stronger. You get positive feedback – it feels good to be grateful. And you connect with God who is the source of all goodness.
You don’t need to look for big miraculous things to be grateful for. Jesus showed that gratitude can begin with very little. On a day when it seemed like he and his friends wouldn’t have enough to eat, Jesus looked up to heaven and thanked God for the food they had (Mark 6:37-44). When Jesus did this, the little they had turned into an abundance.
Fixing the Broken (Devotional)
Back to Table of Contents Back to Table of ContentsConfession and Forgiveness are ancient spiritual practices that teach you to see what’s broken in your life and partner with God to fix it.
You can find this devotional on the YouVersion Bible App (download the app here), or get the Fixing the Broken devotional on Bible.com
Excerpt:
Something’s gone wrong. Your work colleagues have competing agendas and you can’t get the project out the door. Or you’re yelling at your kids and you don’t know how to stop.
Once upon a time, God created all things good. But in this situation, God’s perfect created order seems very far away.
What do you do?
First, you realize that you’re not alone.
Brokenness affects every human relationship and pursuit. Romans 8:22 says that all of creation “groans” today as it awaits God’s liberation. This groaning fills your daily work with setbacks and frustrations. Things don’t go right. You make mistakes and experience delays.
What’s more, your daily interactions with people are troubled by sin – theirs and your own. You have miscommunications. You hurt other people and they hurt you. This goes back to the first chapters of Genesis, and it continues in daily life today.
Thankfully, God provides a way out. Through prayerful reflection you can learn to identify what is broken – what runs contrary to God’s design. You can use confession to give your brokenness over to God. Through Jesus’ forgiveness, you can get a blank slate to start afresh. And you can partner with God in his work to heal your broken situation.
It all starts by cultivating an awareness of the broken. When something goes wrong, rather than thinking of it as annoying and inevitable, think, “This is something that is different from God’s plan. I think God wants to heal this.”
Tuning Into God: 4 Spiritual Practices (Devotional)
Back to Table of Contents Back to Table of ContentsTuning into God is a muscle you need to flex to get stronger. This plan presents four practices you can use to turn down the volume on the voices that surround you and turn up the volume on God.
You can find this devotional on the YouVersion Bible App (download the app here), or get the Tuning Into God plan on Bible.com
Excerpt:
Nearly every moment of every day, dozens of different demands compete for your attention.
Your boss says, “Do this now!” Social media screams, “Look over here!” The people you love clamor for your time. With all these voices, it can be hard to hear the quiet leading of God.
Tuning into God is a spiritual discipline. It’s a muscle you need to flex in order to make it stronger. This plan presents four practices you can use to turn down the volume on the other voices that surround you and turn up the volume on God.
Listening practices are spiritual because they cultivate a different kind of hearing. As 1 Corinthians 2 says, God can’t be seen with normal eyes or heard with normal ears. God can only be revealed through the Spirit.
You can practice tuning into God’s Spirit no matter where you are, including at work.
Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth century monk, learned to connect with God through his day-to-day labor. As he worked in the monastery kitchen, Brother Lawrence trained himself to view his work as something he was doing with God. While he washed dishes, he thought about how much he loved God and how much God loved him. This turned his work into an act of prayer – something that he and God were doing together.
Practice tuning into God through work:
- Think of one manual task you need to do today. It could be washing dishes, pulling weeds, folding laundry, or anything else you need to do.
- Before you start this task, ask God to be with you in your work.
- Try to imagine the task as something that you and God are doing together.
- Listen for any new insights, ideas, or emotions that come to your mind while working.
Prayer: God, thank you for being with me in my work. May my everyday labor be a place where I can tune into you and feel your presence.
Practicing The Examen (Devotional)
Back to Table of Contents Back to Table of ContentsThe 400-year-old spiritual discipline of the Examen can help you discern God’s guidance in your daily life.
You can find this devotional on the YouVersion Bible App (download the app here), or get the Practicing The Examen plan on Bible.com
Excerpt:
The Examen is a spiritual discipline that helps you bring God into your day-to-day work. It's five steps – tune into God’s presence, review your day, notice emotions, discern, and look ahead – force you to search for God’s guidance in the smallest details of your life.
St. Ignatius, who developed the Examen over four centuries ago, believed as it says in Colossians 3:23 that all the work you do can be a spiritual discipline. When you work with the intention of glorifying God, all your activities are important.
Practice the Examen:
- Tune into God’s presence. God, be with me as I reflect on my day.
- Review your day. What gave me joy today? What troubled me today?
- Notice your emotions. What made me feel most strongly?
- Discern. What are you asking me to notice, God?
- Look ahead. What guidance do you have for me?
Prayer: God, thank you for being with me in the smallest moments of my daily work. May all my work serve you. Be with me this week as I reflect and discern.
Intro To The Lectio Divina (Devotional)
Back to Table of Contents Back to Table of ContentsLectio Divina, or “divine reading” is a traditional Christian practice that helps you dive deeply into a passage of scripture and see how God speaks to you.
You can find this devotional on the YouVersion Bible App (download the app here), or get the Intro To The Lectio Divina plan on Bible.com
Excerpt:
The 3rd century Church Father Origen of Alexandria was the first to write about the practice of the Lectio Divina. Origen believed that God was incarnate in scripture and that people could be touched powerfully by God through slow purposeful reading of the Bible.
“When you devote yourself to the divine reading,” Origen wrote, “seek the meaning of divine words which is hidden from most people."
As you read a single passage over and over again, new meanings jump out at you. You can encounter God through this process of discovery.
Practice the Lectio Divina:
- Read (Lectio). Read the passage slowly. What words or phrases jump out at you?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1) - Reflect (Meditatio). Read the passage again. What emotions does it stir up? Is there anything God is saying to you personally through the passage?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1) - Respond (Oratio). Read the passage again. Is there a response or action step God is inviting you to take?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1) - Rest (Contemplatio). Read the passage one last time. Allow the divine reading to sink in.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
Author: Theology of Work Project
Theology of Work Project Online Materials by Theology of Work Project, Inc. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.theologyofwork.org
You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work) for non-commercial use only, under the condition that you must attribute the work to the Theology of Work Project, Inc., but not in any way that suggests that it endorses you or your use of the work.
© 2014 by the Theology of Work Project, Inc.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
