Sharon Garlough Brown | Spiritual Practices & Formation, 152 -

Sharon Garlough Brown | Spiritual Practices & Formation, 152

Sharon Garlough Brown | Spiritual Practices & Formation

Sharon Garlough Brown is an author, spiritual director, and retreat speaker who travels internationally to lead events.

A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Sharon has served on the pastoral staff of congregations in Scotland, Oklahoma, England, and most recently in West Michigan, where she co-pastored with her husband, Jack.

She and Jack now oversee Abiding Way Ministries (www.abidingway.life) which offers spiritual formation retreats and resources, including daily lectio divina recordings.

Sharon’s spiritual formation novels in the bestselling Sensible Shoes series follow the journey of characters who are learning to rest in the love of God.

Her Shades of Light series explores mental health, grief, and God’s presence with us in affliction. Her latest novel, Feathers of Hope, releases in the spring of 2022.

Sharon Garlough Brown joins Amber to discuss spiritual practices awaking us to the presence of God and being formed by the word of God.

Spiritual Practices & Formation Interview Questions:

(4:45) More often than not I am finding Christians either have little to no understanding of spiritual practices or they don’t place a high value on them in their day to day lives. What are spiritual practices and how do they impact our walk with Jesus?
(6:39) How are spiritual practices expressed in the language of the Bible? Are they biblical concepts?
(10:28) I’ve heard it said, “Well, I’m not a very disciplined person.” What is the difference between living a generally disciplined life and practicing spiritual disciplines?
(12:26) Will you speak to the exhausted women out there about spiritual practices and formation?
(13:54) Where is a good place to get started for those who are wanting to pursue spiritual practices more intentionally?
(18:57) How do you direct people away from that temptation to make spiritual practices into a checklist and toward an opportunity to really commune with God?
(20:27) Let’s talk about Lectio Divina. What is it?
(24:42) How can one begin this practice?
(26:38) What would you say to people who want to give up or abandon their practice?
(28:22) Sharon briefly shares her about her books
(33:20) Why do you think that we, as a Church, as a whole, have pushed back so much on some spiritual practices?

Enter to Win Sensible Shoes Series + Journal:

www.graceenoughpodcast.com/sensibleshoes

Quotes to Remember:

“I want to recast…spiritual practices…as ways to be awake and attentive to the presence of God.” “Spiritual practices can enlarge our capacity to say yes to The Love, which loved us first.” “That’s why spiritual disciplines are so crucial, because they free us up to say yes to what God has asked us to do.” “I know I have struggled, and I suspect some of your listeners have with…the socially acceptable addictions to achievement, to busyness, to people’s opinions, to not wanting to disappoint, to wanting to impress. Those are all temptations in our lives. But the model of Jesus is He knows how to retreat, in order to engage. It’s all done from a posture of freedom.” “What we want to do is get rid of any kind of holiness hierarchy, that the spiritual practices that are most important are the ones where I’m rising at 4am to sit in the dark, to be with God. If God has my attention when I am on the move, or if God quickens me and awakens me, when I am surrounded by beauty, or nature, or art, or if it’s music that brings me to life, then friends, spend more time with those things. Start there, because that’s how God has uniquely wired you to be with him. Where he brings you to life.” Lectio Divina: “Rather than me taking control over a text. It sets me humbly beneath the Word of God, saying, ‘Lord, Your Word is alive. It’s living, it’s active. It’s sharper than that two edged sword. It’s able to divide the spirit from the soul, the bone from the marrow [Heb. 4:12] Lord, I’m saying yes to your living word reading me.” “I often got into the bad habit of reading God’s Word in order to teach God’s word, rather than reading God’s Word in order to be formed by God’s word.” “There are seasons in our lives, where he will remove the felt sense of his presence, because we’ve become addicted to it, we define whether we’re faithful by whether or not we felt God. So he will shut that down, he will prune that from us so that we are dependent on God rather than the gifts of God or the felt sense of God.” “The Shades of Light series asks the question, what happens with someone who’s suffering is chronic, there’s a chronic affliction, and the Lord may or may not heal. And so if the Lord does not remove the cup of suffering, how is he present with us as we drink it?”