The Way of Love - Prayer Journal

HOW TO USE THIS PRAYER JOURNAL

Dear friends,

I am so glad you are praying and preparing to walk with us together on pilgrimage to the Way of Love.

This journal is designed to help us ready our hearts, and even more, to ask our Lord Jesus to meet us and walk with us in this Way of Love, for it is his way; we simply desire to walk with him.

Here’s how it works:

• We have eight sections of the Way of Love, and you will find a page for each section. That page will have a few quotes on it that focus our attention on that section, and it will have some open, blank space on which you can write. The idea is to sit with our Lord on each page — maybe it’s your morning or evening prayer for a week and a day — and simply say, “Here I am, Lord, and I want to learn to walk in your way of Love. I offer myself to you.”

Then read the quotes, and listen for (to!) Jesus. Then write whatever seems right to you to write. Or draw whatever comes to mind. Or whatever it is that for you is communicating with the Lord about the topic and your time with him. Maybe it’s what you are hoping for; maybe it’s what you want to leave behind. Maybe it is that you have no idea. Maybe it’s what you are most looking forward to.

• You will notice that doing that takes you half way through the booklet. The second half of the booklet is the same, excepting there are no quotes. You may want to fill in your own thoughts or quotes or Scriptures when we walk through that section on our pilgrimage together. The main thing is to see it as open soul-space for you, and believe that such space matters. Believe.

I am so glad you are on pilgrimage with us. Lead us, Lord Jesus!

Peace, Tim+

Thesis - Our life and mission at Trinity is about knowing and walking in Jesus' way of love. The way is simple, but the walk is challenging and requires courage, though it promises joy and life.

The Path - What is Love, and What Place does it Hold?

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5:44–47, ESV)

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5:6, ESV)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and

understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13.1-3, 12-13, ESV)

A Simple Spirituality of the Way of Jesus

The spirituality of the Prayer Jesus gave us:
• Living in the present
• Love and forgive others
• Courageously on adventure with the Spirit of

Jesus

III

The Wellspring - Connecting to the Love that Flows from the Source of All Being

“As long as we remain enslaved to a culture of speed, superficiality, and distraction, we will not be the people God longs for us to be.” P6

“N.T. Wright similarly affirmed, ’It is only when we slow down our lives that we can catch up to God.’” p7

“Speed has also caused our connections with God and others to be incredibly superficial.” P7

The Author and Story-Holder - Making the Connection to the Love My Story

“Interior examination is a way of life that considers the realities of our inner worlds for the sake of our own flourishing and the call to love well.” P94

“Beyond our personal lives and church communities, our entire world is oriented against interior examination. There is often a paralyzing fear and a compartmentalized approach to life that reinforces our lack of inner investigation.” P94

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24

John Calvin: “The knowledge of God and that of ourselves are connected. Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God. Without knowledge of God, there is no knowledge of self.” P99

“The goal of self-examination is freedom - freedom from destructive thought patterns, inner messages, and the ways we wrongly perceive things.” P101

The Foundation - A ‘Pause’ for Deeper Biblical Foundation

• A bit of deeper biblical foundation: the ‘DNA’ strands that weave through the whole of the Scriptures and make one beautiful story. What this says about:

• The human being
• The Kingdom of God
• The End
• Living between this understanding of the

beginning and the end

The Body Personal - Living in Space and Appropriate Intimacy with Other People

Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil’s definition: “Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish.” P53

“Individual racial prejudice is about how we negatively and often violently perceive others, but institutional racism is about how power is used.” P56

Dr. Michael Emerson: “Whites tend to view racism as intended individual acts of overt prejudice and discrimination...Most people of color define racism quite differently. [For people of color], racism is, at a minimum, prejudice plus power, and that power comes not from being a prejudiced individual, but from being part of a group that controls that nation’s systems.” P58

VII

The Body Politic (strictly speaking) - Love Manifest Lives in the Truth

Debra Hirsch: “Spirituality can be described as a vast longing that drives us beyond ourselves in an attempt to connect with, to probe and to understand our world. And beyond that, it is the inner compulsion to connect with the Eternal Other, which is God. Essentially, it is a longing to know and be known by God (on physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual levels)... Sexuality can be described as the deep desire and longing that drives us beyond ourselves in an attempt to connect with, to understand, that which is other than ourselves. Essentially, it is a longing to know and be known by other people (on physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual levels).” P130-131

“Our sexuality is perverted by a powerful root of shame.” P135

“The love of God doesn’t remove our desires; it reorders them.” P142

“Adam and Eve hid behind a tree, naked and conquered by shame. But Jesus hung on a tree, naked, and conquered shame.” P147

VIII

On Mission of and to Mutual Broken Vessels - Who bears the burden of the

initiative of love? Who takes the cost?

“God can’t get enough of us. From Genesis to Revelation, we come across a God who refuses to be without a people. God comes to be present and available, offering unlimited love to the world.” P182

“If God is present, our fundamental call is to be present as well.” P183

“Mission for a Christian must begin not with human fallenness but with God’s posture toward the world.” P185