Lacy Finn Borgo on Chanting the Psalms Conversation #11 No. 44

In the midst of this bizarre, unsettling spread of covid-19, we invite you to continue on your Lenten journey with this episode on chanting the Psalms. Here in episode no. 44, Josh has a discussion with Lacy Finn Borgo of Good Dirt Ministries and Renovare about how singing the Psalms can get this holy, prayer book of the Scriptures into our bodies. What a great help for us always and especially as we face our current trials, to have the vocabulary of the Psalms deep inside of us to help us speak honestly with God!

Included in this episode is a recording of a Fuller Seminary, DMin in spiritual direction cohort chanting on September 27, 2017. Audio of the full-length of their chanting of Psalms 67, 25 & 26 led by Lacy is available at www.invitationpodcast.org/downloads

The book Josh mentions in this episode is The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.

Also, please check out Lacy’s new book: Spiritual Conversations with Children: Listening to God Together. It is an encouraging, inspiring, and practically helpful way for us to nurture faith in our children and is sure to become a lifegiving resource to parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and anyone ministering to children.

Thanks for listening and joining The Invitation on a journey deeper into the life and love of God. It is an honor to create with you time and space for God. Please subscribe to the Invitation and stay updated on new releases as well as the classes and retreats offered by the Invitation. www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe

If the Invitation has been fruitful in your life, please share the podcast with a friend, consider a one-time donation, or become a sustaining donor by visiting www.invitationpodcast.org/donations Peace of Christ to you!

5 Minute Prayer #14 'Lion or the Dove' No. 11

A lion or a dove? How do you meditate?

The awkward truth about prayer is that you can only learn it by practice. This can be a very discouraging realization. This truth can cause many to avoid prayer altogether. We don't like being beginners. We don't want God to be difficult, and we don't know how to be alone and quiet. We assume that if Jesus is really about love, then a relationship with him should be convenient and simple.

I know how to confess the difficulties of prayer because I've been discouraged most of my life in regard to prayer. Even while serving as a ministry leader, I held God at arm's length and struggled to sit still and give myself to his presence and truth through prayer and meditating on the Scriptures. 

While we can't learn how to pray from books or from someone else, it is possible to gain some inspiration and even some practical coaching on what to look and wait for as we approach God. This is the gift of spiritual direction and what I hope is the gift of this podcast outreach: that you can find some inspiration and practical help to get started or to try again to know and be known by God.

Prayer is simple. It is accessible and even convenient, but not in the way we think of any other simple, accessible, or convenient thing in our lives. Once you enter in you will understand in your own way what I mean. Talking to God is unlike talking to anyone else. Being in his presence is different than the personal presence of any other being. This is God. No one is like him. When you go to prayer on your own, you will learn your own way. There are various ways! You might pray like a lion or a dove, or in some completely other way. 

To understand what I'm getting on about, I invite you to listen to episode no. 11 based on prayer exercise #14 from the prayer guide, "40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes With God."