The Heart at Christmas

Danny KittingerValues and Priorities, What Matters Most

  It’s early December and the Christmas season is upon us. All the lights are up in our neighborhood and all the boxes are down in our home while we decorate inside. The stores are stuffed with merchandise. It certainly is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. No other month dominates our calendar like December. There is the decorating …

Adventure & Friendship

Danny KittingerPrayer, Relationships, Values & Priorities

  Adventure  Life is an adventure, not a competition. I am not striving to accumulate more wealth and resources than my fellow man or to beat out the competition. My desire is to live fully in the plans and purposes God has for me. This is the adventure.  And Jesus encourages me in this journey to stay vigilant and awake …

Darkness and a Sky Full of Stars

Danny KittingerPrayer

Darkness; utter, bleak, and desolate. Its sheer volume is overwhelming, like a vortex attempting to swallow everything in its presence. It is the giant in the room like the invading hordes of hell. It is the overwhelming presence of Sauron’s army from the land of Mordor or the imposing Death Star and the Empire behind it. Darkness comes in many …

Perhaps

Danny KittingerPrayer, What Matters Most

As I was reading Scripture recently and praying over what I read, I realized how my experiences and circumstances have led me to doubt his faithfulness and to doubt that he will answer my prayers. In Job 33, the youngest of Job’s friends rebukes Job for his complaining and refutes his complaint. “But I tell you, in this you are …

The Fascinating Bewildering Practice of Prayer

Danny KittingerPrayer

Introduction, Part 2 In his book, How to Pray, Pete Greig writes that he began a 24/7 prayer movement based on two discoveries.  The first was the realization that prayer was probably the most important thing in the world.  The second was the realization that he was terribly poor at it.  These are the same realizations that my friends and …

Dead Ends, Detours and a World of Wonders

Danny KittingerPrayer

The fascinating bewildering practice of prayer – Introduction, Part 1 Why am I writing a book on prayer? The longer I live the more I realize how little I know about so many things.  This includes things for which I have studied or worked very hard for and things which hold great interest for me.  For instance, I graduated at the …

The Dash

Danny KittingerPerspective, Prayer, Values & Priorities

  Life is a gift.  One which we can’t control.  Our breath is not our own.  It comes to us as a gift.  Really all is a gift.  We struggle and strain, we gather and build, grasping for our place in the world.  Yet every good thing comes to us free of charge with no strings attached.  Many of us …

“god-talk”

Danny KittingerBelief, Faith, Honesty

  One problem in Christian community, though certainly there are many others, is the tendency to use “god-talk” in our conversation.  God-talk is language that ends honest dialogue.  It typically includes the use of scripture in a way that is unchallengeable.  It ignores the reality that there are scriptures that are difficult to swallow and much that is hard to …

Lost Things

Danny KittingerValues and Priorities

Luke records in his gospel a time when people of less than sterling reputation were gathering near Jesus to listen to his wisdom, to experience his kindness, and perhaps to be set free of their sickness and oppression, as they often did.  And as the Pharisees often did, they were grumbling and complaining about such gatherings.  They didn’t like the …