Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: Small actions with big benefits

Lynne Baab • Tuesday November 5 2024

A woman with school-age kids told me that after she says goodbye to her kids each morning when they leave for the school bus, she stands by the door for another minute. She places her hand on the door and prays for each child’s day at school.

A busy children’s ministries director at a church with lots of kids takes a complete day off every Thursday. She calls it her Sabbath, and one of her favorite Sabbath activities is grocery shopping. She lingers in the produce department, looking at the beauty of fruits and vegetables, handling them reverently as she places them in her basket, thanking God for providing food, and rejoicing in God’s creation of the colors, textures, and smells.

These are spiritual practices or spiritual disciplines, a helpful topic for Ordinary Time with its focus on discipleship and evangelism. I have written a lot about spiritual practices, and you may have already read the two stories I just wrote above. Why would I revisit a topic I have already written so much about?

Because I truly love hearing about and pondering the many ways people draw near to God — where they feel close to God, what helps them pray, what forms of Bible reading/study enable them to hear God’s voice, what unexpected things they do habitually that they seldom talk about. The man with a Bible verse in his day planner that he’s trying to memorize when he waits for the elevator at work. The recently divorced man who feels like a failure and prays best in the shower, where the water symbolizes Jesus washing away his feelings of shame.  The many, many people who feel close to God in nature. The faithful church attenders who might have weeks when church feels blah but have many more weeks when the Holy Spirit speaks to them and enables them to lift their hearts in praise.

I have a second reason why I keep writing about spiritual practices. So many people have spoken to me about their guilt and shame because they feel they don’t pray enough or read the Bible daily. I want to give my readers encouragement to pay attention to where you already feel God’s presence, rejoice in it, and perhaps go there more often. I want to encourage experimentation and lightness — shame and guilt are significant inhibitors of playfulness and joy in drawing near to God.

My current definition of a spiritual practice is any way we habitually draw near to God. I want to tease out the concepts within that brief definition. If you’d like to read a more systematic presentation of ways to define spiritual practices, look at this article and go down to the first subhead, “A Definition of Spiritual Practices or Spiritual Disciplines.”

Let's look at my definition: “Any way we habitually draw near to God.” People draw near to God in so very many ways. Here’s where the lightness and experimentation come into play. Spiritual practices can involve simple things like post-it notes with prayer requests and praying when we hear a siren. Maybe you feel drawn to try something that feels big, like a two-day silent retreat. Maybe you’ll find it fruitful and enjoyable, and maybe you won’t. Either is okay. The most common spiritual practices I hear about are church attendance, looking for God in nature, reading a psalm at bedtime, and a brief prayer upon waking.

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, in her wonderful Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, begins her definition by describing spiritual disciplines as “intentional practices, relationships, and experiences.”[1] If we think about “practices, relationships, and experiences,” many options open up. I like her use of the word “intentional,” which relates to “habitually.”

“Any way we habitually draw near to God.” “Habitually” doesn’t mean we have to do it every day. Sabbath-keeping and church attendance are weekly, or perhaps most weeks or some weeks. When I was an associate pastor two decades ago, I took a several-hour prayer walk on the last Wednesday of each month to ponder and pray about my priorities and goals for the next month. I see spiritual practices as something we do more than once or twice, a pattern or repeated activity, with an intentional purpose — even if we aren’t entirely consistent in following the pattern we have laid out.

“Any way we habitually draw near to God.” For Calhoun, spiritual practices give people “space in their lives to ‘keep company’ with Jesus.” [2] I often encourage people to think about places or activities that help them feel like they’re walking with Jesus or that Jesus is with them.

Marjorie Thompson, in Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life, has a slightly different focus. She writes that spiritual practices “train us in faithfulness.” [3] We can expect that when we do something intentionally, with some regularity, to draw near to God or keep company with Jesus, we will be changed bit by bit into the image of Christ. Thompson’s perspective fits well with the priorities of Ordinary Time. Spiritual practices help us live as disciples, loving God, walking with Jesus, relying on the Holy Spirit, loving those around us, and testifying to God’s goodness.

The Apostle Paul prays for the Ephesians in such a vivid way. Spiritual practices are part of how this prayer becomes true in our lives. I am praying this prayer for myself and for the readers of this blog post:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
—Ephesians 3:14-19

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Next week: the overlap of the sacred and the ordinary. Illustration by Dave Baab: Princess Diana Memorial Garden, Cambridge, England.

Three of my articles on spiritual practices:

• Listening for God: The joy of spiritual practices
• I'm excited about spiritual disciplines
• Small habits, big benefits

[1] and [2] Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 17. In 2015 a revised and expanded version of The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook was released.

[3] Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), xv.

Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her two 2024 books, both of them illustrated with her talented husband Dave's watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed books, and in the kindle versions, if read on a phone, the watercolors glow. Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide guides the reader into new ways to pray about the topics in the title. Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional guides the reader to a psalm for each day of Lent and offers insightful reflection/discussion questions that can be used alone or in groups. 

Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian  Life, available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her most popular book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.

Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader

"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping