A Sojourner’s Thoughts

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A Flock of Ducks

Ok, so here’s the scoop, it January in Minnesota, we’ve had cold snaps of -20, there’s a foot of snow on the ground, and the lakes all have ice on them, yet I have a flock of duck 10 or so that come flying by my office at home every morning. I don’t know where they are going to or where they are coming from but to me they seem a little out of place in a Minnesota winter (they just circled by a couple more times). If this were summer we wouldn’t even think twice about seeing them flying around. They would blend right in to the surroundings. They would be a natural fit.

As a Christ-follower, I should be like the ducks in the winter. I don’t simply want to blend in with my surroundings or culture. I should instead standout. I would hope that people would see something different in me, the way I act, the way I respond. I believe that it is Paul who says we should be in the world but not of the world. This is not a case of being better than others, just different in how or why we act the way we do. My beliefs and values should compel me to do things differently than what the culture might dictate, what “religion” might dictate.
My challenge this week is to go out and be a duck in the winter, to standout and make a difference, not so that I can be honored but so that the love of God might be shared with others.
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30 More Days of Daily Prayers

30 More Days of Daily Prayers

Today’s prayer – Lord I often fall short yet Your love abounds. Show me what I need to change so there is less stumbling & more soaring. Amen

31 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Creator God, show me what I am clinging to with clenched a fist so that I may let go & come to you with open hands & an open heart. Amen.

30 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord God, what is it I need to do, that I’m not, to know You that much more? Now help me to do it. Amen.

29 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Abba Father, help me to know You better so that I can known myself better. Amen

28 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer-Lord, let Your righteous anger convict & correct me while Your loving mercy engulfs me. Let me be still & know You. Amen.

27 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Father God grant me Your wisdom & understanding so that I might see the wicked and righteous paths and choose properly. Amen.

26 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – May God find favor with you on this day, the day we celebrate the birth of our Savior, so that His peace may engulf you. Amen.

25 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Abba Father, search my heart, clean it of those things that can harden it or make me prideful. Open my heart to you. Amen.

23 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Lord God, help me to pray- when I’m troubled, when I’m happy, when I’m sick- direct my prayers to conform to Your will for me. Amen.

22 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord God, let me stand strong, to persevere, to be a voice for You in an ever darkening world. Amen.

21 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Gracious Father, let me be strong & courageous as I lean into my fears knowing that You are with me always. Amen.

19 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Father God, give me patients as the unknown future opens up in front of me. Let me trust in You with all my heart… Amen.

18 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Lord, You have shown me the beliefs/values You want me to engage in. Thanks. Now I ask that You help me to live them out. Amen.

17 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord I desire wisdom so that I might know your desires, passions & will so that I might make them mine so that I can serve others. Amen.

16 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Lord God, help me to see the things that crowed You out & then help me to do something about them. Amen

15 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer -Lord listen with me to the words I speak, if they are displeasing to You help me change my heart to reflect Yours. Amen.

14 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Heavenly Father, let my beliefs & values (being) be lived out in my praxis (doings). Amen

13 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Father God, as You have shown mercy to me, help me to show mercy to others. Amen.

12 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord God, my tongue both curses and blesses – help me to eliminate the first & increase the second – towards You & others. Amen

11 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord show me how to give voice to the voiceless & how to serve those whom society has forgotten or rejected. Amen.

9 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord you want me to listen & do. Tune my ears to hear Your voice & my heart to do Your will. Amen.

8 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Father God thank you for choosing me to be part of your plan here. I am humbled & lean on you to complete your purpose. Amen.

7 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Lord Almighty, I desire to be in relationship with you living a life focus on your purpose for my life not my purpose for my life. Amen.

6 Dec 2009






Today’s prayer – Lord Almighty, stir up my spirit so that I remember to set you first in my life. I rejoice that You are with me & I with You. Amen

5 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord Almighty, as I remember the things you have done for me I want to honor You by being someone who fears You and serves You. Amen

3 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Abba Father, I desire to know you in a new way, in a way that transforms me into who you want me to become. Amen

2 Dec 2009




Today’s prayer – Lord Almighty, let me view my life with an eternal perspective knowing that in the end I will reign with You forever. Amen.

1 Dec 2009

Today’s prayer – Lord God, I want to be one who is distinct from the world, serving others for your glory & honor. Amen.

30 Nov 2009

Today’s prayer – Holy Spirit send your purifying fire to melt my heart & release its impurities so that they can be replaced with things pleasing to God

29 Nov 2009

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Reflections from my hermitage

Sunday afternoon I left for Pacem in Terris for a 3 day retreat into silence and solitude. My plan was to do some writing on a doctoral project that is very over due, reflect on the past year, and do a little reading in preparation for a class coming up this winter. Plans and reality don’t always come together when one is getting alone with God. I had my agenda, but I was also open to God’s agenda. This is something I have learned from numerous retreats to the hermitage’s of Pacem in Terris.

The first night is usually a time of rambling around the hermitage trying to decompress from the world I have just left and enter into a time of silence and solitude to meet God with a quieted heart. One that is open to His leading. A place where one is able to listen for “that still small voice.” I simply sit and listen. The mind wanders and I put it back. The view out the window, sitting in the rocker allows one to be open to the Spirits leading. It was a time spent reading and pondering what the prophet Hosea was writing the God’s chosen people. Despite their sin and abandonment of God, He still loved them. Sleep, rest, peace.
Monday came and I was going to write, but God had other plans. I had begun to read the book The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner on Sunday and found myself drawn into the questions being posed he posed. The book is about the need to get rid of our false self and become our true self. Benner proposes this is done by knowing God and through knowing God we can then know ourself. It is about the idea that our existence is ground in God’s divine love or us. I started to make a connection to what I was reading in Hosea. I love when God helps me to connect dots. Benner talks about hiding and holding on to pieces of our false self and how they need to be given up. More dots to connect. I was later reading a book by Henri Nouwen called With Open Hands. In this book about prayer, Nouwen says that it when we grasp onto something with a clinched fist we are unable to come to God with open hands and receive from Him what he wants to give us. To often what I don’t want to give us is a part of my false self. By holding so tightly I do not or can not fully embrace who it is God is calling me to be. I am still pondering this question and others raised by Benner.
In short, I did get some writing done, but more importantly God met me in my heritage and started be down another transformation path that He is using to shape me into the creating He wants me to become. I know that this is a life long process and will require a lot more trips back to the hermitage where I can once again find the silence and solitude I long for so that I can hear God speaking and where I can ponder the things that He has said.