Looking to simplify your life? quiet your mind? find your unique spiritual gift(s) and make a difference? Turn to the Beatitudes!
Sometimes teachings from well-known biblical passages are so obvious and preached so often that we overlook other helpful, not-so-obvious lessons. The Beatitudes are celebrated as being the template for humble Christian living. Dig deeper and you'll also find practical applications for living a simpler yet more spiritually engaged life, especially in this distraction-heavy and frenzied world.
"…the Beatitudes are not easy sayings we can glibly incorporate in our way of life," writes Redding. "Like so much of what Jesus said, they invite us to move beyond first impressions and surface meanings. They challenge us to explore."
Using Jesus' teachings about the kingdom of heaven and how that message spurs us to critically evaluate our priorities, Redding says we must learn to say no to some things to say yes to God.
The book's brief chapters are just-right for today's busy schedules and can be read in minutes. Daily exercises following each chapter will help you consider and practice lessons learned and respond to scripture in a self-guided study. Also included are meeting plans for an 8-session small-group study of the book.
Mary Lou Redding is interested in many disciplines -- art, literature, music, science, philosophy, religion, politics. She is a writer, a thinker, a feminist, a loving mother and grandmother, an outspoken and direct person. She loves to bake and cook, creating her own recipes. She designs and sews clothes, watches Star Trek in all its versions, roots for the Atlanta Braves, and plays word games at every opportunity. From hardy, hillbilly stock, Mary Lou is in the first generation of her family to be born outside Kentucky since her great- [x 20] grandfather George Gideon Ison came to Letcher County in the early 1700s. Her hillbilly heritage of fierce independence and hard work is sometimes evident in negative ways. She is one of seven children and has over 50 first cousins. Mary Lou's only child, an adult daughter, is the mother of her two nearly perfect granddaughters, Rosalie and Arianwyn. Spending time with them and with other younger members of her huge extended family brings Mary Lou great joy. Before becoming an editor and writer, Mary Lou taught basic and advanced prose writing and business communication on the college level. Teaching -- both writing and the Bible -- is one of her great loves. Mary Lou has a master of arts degree in rhetoric and writing and worked professionally as a writer and editor for many years, retiring as editorial director of The Upper Room magazine in 2012. Of all the writing and editing projects she has been part of, Mary Lou most treasures helping to create the Spiritual Formation Bible, published in 1999 by Zondervan and republished in 2007 by Upper Room Books as the Meeting God Bible. One of her major interests is the intersection of personality and spirituality, and she is certified to administer and interpret the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality-preference inventory. Mary Lou completed the Academy for Spiritual Formation, an intensive, two-year experiential and academic program in Christian spirituality.
