Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

When hints of sadness creep into our soul, we must not flee into happy or distracting thoughts. Pondering the sadness until it becomes overwhelming can lead us to deep change in the direction of our being from self-preservation to grateful worship.

Led by myself and two colleagues, the course offers a newly developed model of spiritual direction that draws on both the age-old wisdom of the church and more recent perspectives. I call it the Passion/Wisdom Model of Spiritual Direction, and I see it as offering the opportunity for our interior worlds and supernatural reality to meet.

Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.

I hear Jesus telling us to stop negotiating with Him, to stop offering something we think we have in exchange for His blessings.

The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we'll shift our direction.

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.