Almost Peaceful: My Journey of Healing from Binge EatingFriendship, 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

Common discovery on the journey

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 30 2025

Common discovery on the journey

Samuel Wells writes that trying to be inclusive and trying to exercise hospitality can have overtones of pride and control because we are the ones doing the action. Instead of using the terms “inclusive” or “hospitable,” he suggests,

“A better term might be common discovery — something we more readily appreciate when we’re away from our own familiar territory. It’s not, ‘You can belong in my club because I’m generous.’ It’s, ‘Being with you is showing me there’s something beyond us both, toward which we’re each heading, and to which I’m realizing you’re in many ways closer than I am. Let’s make...

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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 emotions of hospitality

Lynne Baab • Tuesday June 13 2023

Praying about the emotions of hospitality

“Hospitality . . . is a feeling: genuine, welcoming, generous, restorative, safe. —Bethany Jean Clement, Seattle Times staff writer

I captured that quotation because I loved the list of descriptors the author uses. I thought her words were marvelous fuel for prayers about being hospitable. However, the more I thought about it, the more questions I had.

One way to look at this quotation is that Clement is describing the feelings evoked in the person receiving hospitality. However, those feelings usually also a play a role for the giver of hospitality.

Before I dive deeper into the questions the quotation raised for me, let me...

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Featured books

Almost Peaceful: My Journey of Healing from Binge Eating Almost Peaceful: My Journey of Healing from Binge Eating I've never written a book like this before! A personal story with photos from my life and Dave Baab's beautiful watercolors. I pray it will bring encouragement and healing to readers. 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