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Draw near: Praying to recognize the good

Lynne Baab • Wednesday February 8 2023

Sometimes a phrase in another language gives insight into what a word or concept means. Last week I learned that in Hebrew, the phrase for being thankful is hakarat hatov, which means recognizing the good. Wikipedia describes hakarat hatov as an attitude that is a required part of Jewish life. Wikipedia gives two somewhat amusing real-life examples:

Your children are exhausting, but you have children. You misplaced your car keys, but you do own a car. The Hebrew language has a different term for giving thanks. These two terms help us discern that recognizing the good is an internal process, while giving thanks is more...

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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...

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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 ....

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Draw near: Praying about ambition

Lynne Baab • Tuesday January 17 2023

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.” —Abraham Lincoln, age 23, running for his first political office in 1832

Apart from the frustrating fact that people 150 years ago used “men” to refer to people, what do you think about Abraham Lincoln’s words? Is he describing a perspective that is consistent with Christian values because he focuses on developing an admirable character? Is he looking too strongly to people around him to...

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