In July 2012 I had the privilege of traveling to Pennsylvania to serve on a retreat team through a ministry called Equipping Lydia (EL). The wonderful thing about serving on one of EL's retreat teams is that you have the opportunity to minister alongside women who are listening for the invitations from God. On this particular retreat one of the women, who is an artist, drew a picture of a passion flower and believed that it represented an experience that I had while serving on the retreat team. God had not fully revealed to me the meaning of that drawing until I started this blog.
The passion flower she drew was God's invitation for me to be open to His will for my life. I believe this invitation to openness is what has been the driving force behind my desire to learn about Spiritual Formation. It has also been an invitation for me to learn and practice other spiritual disciplines such as solitude and silence. Spiritual Formation isn't something I learned about in Sunday school or in the church where I had been a member. So I had to be willing to forsake focusing on what other people might think and just say yes to what God was inviting me to do.
The passion flower is an amazing picture of transformation. It starts out closed and begins to open in the morning and stays open all day and into the night. I looked at a Youtube Video of a passion flower opening up and it took almost eight hours for it to open. Isn't that like us? As we become more aware of His presence throughout the day we become more open to His invitations?
What a beautiful picture of how we are to be formed into the image of God? In the morning we should spread our hearts open wide in prayer, the reading of His Word and/or other spiritual disciplines. That's our RSVP to His invitation to transform us. Then the Son of God will shine his light on us, in us and around us for the world to see the beauty of who He is through our attitudes and actions.
You are cordially invited....
To be open to practice the discipline of solitude and silence.
To be open to practice the discipline of solitude and silence.
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