Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer GuideDraw Near: A Lenten Devotional Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeSabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond our AppetitesA Renewed SpiritualityNurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First CenturyThe Power of ListeningJoy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your CongregationPrayers of the New TestamentPrayers of the Old TestamentPersonality Type in CongregationsSabbathA Garden of Living Water: Stories of Self-Discovery and Spiritual GrowthDead Sea: A NovelDeadly Murmurs: A NovelDeath in Dunedin: A NovelBeating Burnout in CongregationsReaching Out in a Networked WorldEmbracing MidlifeFriendingAdvent Devotional

Praying about the flow of time: The unity of the Bible in the road to Emmaus conversation

Lynne Baab • Wednesday May 21 2025

Praying about the flow of time: The unity of the Bible in the road to Emmaus conversation

When I was 11, my family lived in Wiesbaden, Germany. My dad was an Air Force pilot stationed there. We attended an Anglican church, and 11 was the age for confirmation. My parents asked me if I wanted to be confirmed — no pressure, they said — and I examined my heart. I had a sense of God’s bigness and power, communicated by the communion liturgy, and I loved Psalm 23. Yes, I thought, God is my shepherd, and I want to affirm that through confirmation.

Between the age of 12 and 15, Sunday school was deadly boring, the communion service no...

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Praying about the flow of time: Bread in Emmaus

Lynne Baab • Thursday May 15 2025

Praying about the flow of time: Bread in Emmaus

When Cleopas and another disciple meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day that Jesus was resurrected, the two disciples don’t recognize him. They invite him into their home for a meal. Here’s one of the key moments of the story:

“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:30, 31, see Luke 24:13-35 for the whole story).

Jesus was made known to the two disciples when he blessed and broke the bread. This...

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Praying about the flow of time: Guests and hosts on the road to Emmaus

Lynne Baab • Tuesday May 6 2025

Praying about the flow of time: Guests and hosts on the road to Emmaus

On the day of Jesus’s resurrection, a disciple named Cleopas and another person — perhaps a friend, a sibling, or Cleopas’s wife — left Jerusalem before news of the resurrection reached them. Both of them had been eager followers of Jesus, and they walked home to Emmaus disconsolate and discouraged because Jesus had died. A stranger on the road joined their discussion, asking them why they were sad. They told him about Jesus, their hopes about his kingdom, and the dashing of those hopes at his crucifixion. The stranger, extremely well-versed in Jewish history and the Hebrew scriptures, told them his...

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Praying about the flow of time: An Emmaus lesson about listening to our bodies

Lynne Baab • Tuesday April 29 2025

Praying about the flow of time: An Emmaus lesson about listening to our bodies

Two disciples are walking home after Jesus’s crucifixion. They meet a stranger on the road, and he talks to them about the pattern of God’s work in history. When they invite him into their home to have dinner with them, he breaks the bread, they recognize that he is Jesus, and he vanishes. Reflecting back on the conversation on the road, they say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:13-35).

Jenna Smith, the director of a Christian youth center in Montreal, has an...

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Featured books

Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer Guide Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer Guide Lynne draws on her Ph.D. studies in communication to bring insight about listening and empathy so that we can pray more deeply. Each of the 28 short chapters is illustrated with a beautiful watercolor by Dave Baab. Buy online » Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest Sabbath Keeping is Lynne's most popular book, available in paperback, audiobook, and for Kindle. Grounded in her 18 months living in Israel, it is practical, biblical, and reflective about why rest matters so much today. Buy online »

Featured articles

Meeting God in Grief and Gratitude

Lynne Baab • Wednesday January 22 2025

By Lynne M. Baab, author of Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life

Nurturing a contemplative stance for navigating challenging times

Lynne Baab • Friday August 11 2023

By Lynne M. Baab

Yes, Jesus Told Us to Pray in Secret. But He Also Prayed with His Friends.

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 9 2021

By Lynne M. Baab. Originally published in Christianity Today, July 8, 2021