Home & Blog | Lynne Baab

Prayer and Practicing the Presence of God

Lynne Baab • Tuesday July 4 2023

“We can ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.” —C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

I read the beautiful little book, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, when I was in my twenties. In my memory, the book is about trying to stay aware of God’s presence in everyday life as described by C. S. Lewis above. I wanted to write a blog post about the difference — if there is one — between being aware of God’s presence and actually turning to...

Read full article »

Draw near: Names for God in prayer

Lynne Baab • Wednesday February 15 2023

Until I was nine, my father was an air force pilot. I got my love of maps from him because he always showed me where he had flown. Apart from that, I had little relationship with him because he always seemed tired and unavailable when he was at home. I could understand being tired after flying a plane, so I wasn’t mad about it. After he quit flying, he stayed in the air force another six years, and then he was a banker. He was still mostly unavailable when at home, which was a bit baffling and even upsetting because he...

Read full article »

Draw near: Praying from a liminal space

Lynne Baab • Wednesday February 1 2023

I first met the word “liminal” in 2009 in readings for a new course I was planning to teach on the missional church. I had arrived in New Zealand in 2007 to teach pastoral theology, and I found that many church leaders there were talking about the idea that Christians need to be missional. They seemed to be contrasting “missional” with traditional church missions. I didn’t understand the concept and wanted to learn more. What better way to learn than to design a course around a new topic?

To summarize briefly, “missional” focuses on the idea that we are sent in to...

Read full article »

Draw near: Praying about what we are looking for

Lynne Baab • Tuesday January 24 2023

Lutheran Bishop Michael Rinehart once got three speeding tickets in a year. The state where he lived, Iowa, required that he take a defensive driving course. At the end of the second class, the instructor asked to talk with him for a few minutes. The conversation that Bishop Rinehart describes is both amusing and thought-provoking.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Because I got three speeding tickets.” “No, really, why are you here?” It was an existential question. I wasn’t sure how to answer. “Where are you going in such a hurry?” “Well, the first time I was going to ....

Read full article »

<< Newer | Older >>