The Joy That Sets Us Free

Cultivating Joy
The Joy That Sets Us Free

Joy is an abiding sense of well-being based on the experience of a conscious relationship with God. It is the sign of liberation from the false self and the growing awareness of the true self. Flowing from joy comes the freedom to accept the present moment and its content without trying to change it.
- Thomas Keating

Throughout this week, we’ve explored joy in many forms—as fruit needing nurture, as daily choice, as contemplative practice, as a song in our hearts. Today, with Keating’s help, we’ll explore how joy flows from our deepening relationship with God and leads to a profound kind of freedom.

This understanding of joy is very different from what our culture often presents. Rather than depending on perfect circumstances or constant happiness, true joy emerges from knowing who we really are in God’s eyes. It’s the kind of joy that allows us to accept the present moment without trying to change it—a radical notion in our achievement-obsessed world.

We glimpse this liberating joy in common examples: a recovering addict celebrating sobriety one day at a time. A parent delighting in their child’s unique personality rather than trying to shape them into someone else. A new retiree discovering new purpose beyond their former career identity. These aren’t necessarily easy situations, but they illustrate the freedom that comes when we let go of our false selves and embrace who God created us to be.

Joy flows constantly through our lives, inviting us to let go of what isn’t truly us and embrace the freedom of being fully ourselves in God’s infinitely loving eyes.

Making it Personal: Where do you notice this liberating joy in your life? How might viewing joy as flowing from your relationship with God, rather than from external circumstances, change your experience? When have you felt the freedom of accepting a moment exactly as it is?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Joy in My Heart

Cultivating Joy
Joy in My Heart

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.
- George William Cooke, I’ve Got the Joy

At the risk of having this song now stuck in your head for the next few hours, we want to remind you of some of the lyrics, which are very popular with children of all ages:

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy,
Down in my heart, (Where?)
Down in my heart, 
Down in my heart;
I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy,
Down in my heart,
Down in my heart to stay.

I've got the peace that passeth understanding,
Down in my heart, (Where?)
Down in my heart, …

I've got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus,
Down in my heart, (Where?)
Down in my heart, …

It’s hard to sing this song without feeling joyful, and maybe that's the point. 

There are a few other nuggets of wisdom about joy in this song. First, joy is not something found “out there” but is found deep inside. Where? Deep in our hearts! The second verse reminds us that joy and peace are deeply connected. And the third verse reminds us that as people of faith, the source of our joy is God's love is manifested in Jesus.

May this song help us cultivate some joy in our hearts today, and may it connect us more deeply with God's peace and love.

Making It Personal: Music is often a source and expression of joy. Is there a song that brings you joy? What do you think of the idea that joy is not so much found “out there” but within us and in our connection with God’s peace and love?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Discovering Joy’s Presence

Cultivating Joy
Discovering Joy’s Presence

Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.
- 1 Peter 1:8

In our search for joy, we sometimes overlook its subtle presence in our daily lives. The Examen of Joy is a spiritual practice that can help us notice and celebrate these experiences, training our hearts to attune to joy’s profound gifts.

Find a comfortable, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Begin by taking a few settling breaths and becoming aware of God’s loving presence. Then, gently review your day, asking yourself: When did I feel most alive with joy? It might have been during an everyday occurrence—a child’s laugh, a task completed, a kind exchange, a glimpse of beauty.

Next, consider: When did joy feel distant or difficult? Rather than judging, simply hold whatever comes up with compassion. Notice what each might teach you about what nurtures or hinders joy in your life. Sometimes the absence of joy awakens us to its soft stirring in ways we might otherwise miss.

Now look more closely at one joyful experience. What made it joyful? Was it connection with another person? A sense of accomplishment? The beauty of nature? A quiet time of prayer? Notice how it lives in your body, mind, and spirit. Pay attention to the particular tone of this joy—each instance has its own unique qualities.

Close by giving thanks for these insights about joy, while releasing any expectations or judgements into God’s care. Like the gradual process we explored on Monday, this practice helps us recognize and receive joy in the many ways it can show up in our daily lives.

Making it Personal: When could you take time and pause for this practice of looking back on your day for signs of joy? What recent encounter with joy might you want to explore more deeply? How might paying regular attention to joy’s presence change how you move through your days?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Choosing Joy

Cultivating Joy
Choosing Joy

Joy does not simply happen to us.
We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
- Henri Nouwen

A few years ago our now eight-year-old grandson was visiting and he found an unused paint stick (the kind you use to stir a new can of paint) in a drawer. He was thrilled by it, and together we made up a game that entertained us both for quite some time. The challenge was to imagine how many different things the stick could be, and then act out each one.

Predictably, he first saw the stick as a sword or light saber, and pretended to be a Jedi knight. Soon we were transforming that simple wooden paint stick into a diving board, a teeter totter, pencil, baseball bat, javelin, rocket, stick person, airplane wing, slide, and flag pole. We lost track of time as we reveled in our silliness.

Joy is like that. Sometimes we have to improvise and find it in the most surprising places. So as we focus this week on cultivating joy in our lives, let’s not wait for joy to come to us. Instead, let’s look for moments to notice it or create it. You may not have a paint stick handy, but there are no doubt other simple ways you can cultivate joy.

Making It Personal: Can you think of a simple, unexpected experience of joy that you either created or experienced recently? Is there something simple you can do or see this week for yourself or with another that will cultivate joy?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Cultivating Joy

Theme for Week Three
Cultivating Joy

Cultivating joy is a gradual process,
built through small, meaningful actions.
- Randy Callender

Yesterday’s reflection helps us begin our focus on this week’s theme: cultivating the fruit of joy in our lives. 

Randy shared a story about feeling a lack of joy after moving to a new city. He realized that, like a gardener, if he wanted to see some new growth and some new fruit, he would have to cultivate it. So he began reaching out to others and slowly began to do things that would eventually create the joy he was seeking. We tend to think of the joy of big moments and forget that most often it can be found in the small day-to-day habits and choices we create.

I remember watching the Olympics last summer and hearing Simone Biles being interviewed. She said she had stepped away from gymnastics a few years prior because she was no longer enjoying it, and her mental health was suffering. Only when she rediscovered the joy of her workouts could she begin to train again. She said she had to stop focusing on outcomes and learn to find joy in the day-to-day training process. 

Big occasions and important outcomes are nice. But life is lived mostly in the quiet times of small choices. As we focus on cultivating joy this week, these small choices and actions are a good place to direct our attention.

Making It Personal: What small moments or choices are bringing you joy right now? If you are seeking more joy, what is one small, meaningful action you could take this week to help cultivate it?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

The Patient Gardener

The Third Sunday in Lent
The Patient Gardener
Reflection by Randy Callender

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
- Luke 13:6–9

Have you ever felt stuck, like you’re putting in all the effort but not seeing any results? This feeling can be especially disheartening and scary when it comes to finding joy in our lives. This dilemma reminds me of Jesus’ parable about a barren fig tree in Luke 13:1–9. In the story, a tree hasn’t produced fruit for three years and the owner is ready to cut it down. But before he does, the gardener asks for more time, promising to nurture it with extra care in hopes that the tree will eventually bear fruit. This story taught me a valuable lesson: joy often needs to be cultivated with care and patience. Just like the gardener in Luke, we need to give ourselves time and put in the effort to nurture joy. It might not come instantly, but with patience and care, it can grow.

Twelve years ago, I learned this lesson personally when I moved to a new city for a job opportunity. Initially, I was excited about the change, but soon I felt isolated and disconnected. My daily routine became monotonous, and joy seemed as elusive as fruit on a barren tree. One day, feeling particularly low, I decided to meet someone from the local church for coffee. That conversation became a turning point, leading to new friendships and opportunities to serve in the community. Through these relationships, I discovered how joy can grow in astonishing ways. It took time, but nurturing those connections brought the fulfillment I had been missing.

Cultivating joy, I’ve learned, is a gradual process built through small, meaningful actions. Whether it’s sharing a meal, learning a new skill from someone else, volunteering, or simply listening to another’s story, these moments are like the fertilizer and water that nourish our inner garden. When we focus on what’s working—the small signs of growth, the serendipitous connections, the simple pleasures—we begin to recognize joy’s presence, even in ordinary moments.

Sometimes we complicate joy by thinking it requires grand gestures or perfect circumstances. But like the patient gardener, we only need to tend the soil of our daily lives with care and attention. Joy grows in the small acts of giving and receiving, in the connections we make, in the simple act of being fully present, to ourselves and others. By focusing on the blessings and provision of God, we can cultivate a heart of gratitude and joy.

This perspective not only helps us find deep and lasting happiness, it also teaches us to appreciate the small steps we take toward a more joyful life.

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Practicing Peace

Cultivating Peace
Practicing Peace

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.
- Thích Nhât Hanh

One of the challenges for many of us in our everyday lives is our false assumption that our spirituality is something wholly separate from everything else. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, the only way we have of experiencing “the spiritual” is in the here and now where there are tasks to do, relationships to tend, and life to live. To be sure, there will be days when everything just clicks along perfectly. There will also be plenty of days where life’s “weather” dumps all sorts of precipitation on us. And sadly, all of us will have days of difficulty, pain, and loss.

As it happens, practicing peaceableness can only take place amidst the challenges, distractions, joys and pains of daily life. Further, we will never learn to be peacemakers without rubbing elbows with all of “those people” who rub us the wrong way. In the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, there is a powerful line: “Grant that we may not so much seek … to be understood as to understand.” Learning to understand is the beginning of walking in the path of peace.

Making it Personal: How do you practice peace? Where in your life do you need deeper understanding of a person or situation, and how would a deeper understanding help you find peace or be more peaceable?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Rooted and Grounded

Cultivating Peace
Rooted and Grounded

Peace is the pervasive sense of contentment that comes from being rooted in God while being fully aware of one’s own nothingness. It is a state that endures beyond the ups and downs of life, beyond the emotions of joy and sorrow. At the deepest level one knows that all is well, that everything is just right despite all appearances to the contrary.
- Thomas Keating

Throughout this week, we’ve explored how peace begins within, how it grows in the space between stimulus and response, and how peacemaking requires courage. Today we’re invited by Thomas Keating to consider an even deeper dimension of peace: one that remains steady regardless of external circumstances.

This kind of peace doesn’t deny life’s challenges but transcends them. It’s the peace that allows a hospice nurse to remain present and compassionate in the face of suffering. It’s the calm that enables a mediator to hold space for opposing viewpoints. It’s the steadiness that helps a parent stay grounded while supporting a struggling child.

When we are rooted in God’s peace, we discover a profound truth: peace isn’t just the absence of conflict, but the presence of something greater. A disagreement becomes an opportunity for understanding. A challenging situation becomes an invitation to practice presence.

This peace flows through all areas of our lives, turning anxiety into trust, conflict into growth, and fear into love. Like the breath practice we explored on Wednesday, it teaches us to receive God’s peace and release what stands in its way. We learn that being “rooted in God” means finding our center in something deeper than the constantly shifting circumstances of our lives.

Making it Personal: Where do you most need to experience this enduring peace right now? How might viewing peace as something that transcends circumstances change your approach to difficult situations? What helps you stay grounded in God’s peace when external conditions are challenging?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Cultivating Peace
Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Peace work begins within tension and can cause more tension as peace is created. In order to be a part of peace, we have to lean toward each other and the common goal of working together to restore community.
- Abi Moon, from Sunday’s reflection

If we find ourselves avoiding a difficult conversation we know we need to have with someone, then we understand what Abi Moon’s words mean. What likely keeps us from having a difficult conversation is often the fear that we might make things worse or at least more uncomfortable by starting the conversation. This may be true—initial efforts at peacemaking may cause more tension before a deeper peace is possible.

Jesus never avoided hard conversations. Instead he spoke the truth with love, a model for all of us regarding peacemaking. Speaking in love, whether expressing hurt feelings or offering apology, is essential. Prefacing a challenging conversation by expressing our true desire to create peace and healing can set a context of love that will likely make the conversation flow more easily. 

Many Christians express their desire to “be a blessing” to others. As Jesus exemplified, one concrete way we can indeed be a blessing to others is by committing to the essential yet challenging work of being peacemakers.

Making it Personal: Where is God inviting you to be a peacemaker right now? Is there a meaningful conversation you want to have with someone, maybe one you have been avoiding? If so, how can you preface and ground that conversation in love?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

A Practice of Peace

Cultivating Peace
A Practice of Peace

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
- Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)

Peace often feels elusive in our busy, overconnected world. Today we’ll explore a simple practice called Receive & Release. This prayer practice can help us cultivate peace through the natural rhythm of our breath.

Find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, where you can be both alert and relaxed. Take a few slow breaths to settle yourself. Then, as you breathe in, silently say “receive peace,” and as you breathe out, say “release tension.” Let your breath find its natural rhythm.

You might notice how your mind wanders to memories, worries, or plans. This is a very common experience. Just as waves constantly move on the ocean’s surface while deeper waters remain calm, our thoughts may continue while we cultivate peace in our depths. Each time you notice your mind has wandered, gently return to the rhythm of receiving peace and releasing tension.

After a few minutes, you might choose a specific situation in your life where you desire more peace. As you breathe in, receive God’s peace for this situation As you breathe out, release whatever stands in the way of that peace—perhaps worry, judgement, or the need to control.

This simple practice can open us to peace in all dimensions of our lives. Like the space between stimulus and response we explored yesterday, each breath creates a small sanctuary where we can choose peace over reaction. End your practice by briefly resting in silence, noticing what has shifted within you.

Making it Personal: When might you set aside time for this breathing practice? Where do you already experience a sense of peace in your day? What situation in your life needs this gentle rhythm of receiving peace and releasing tension? How might regular practice help you cultivate peace in your daily life?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Peace and Self-Control

Cultivating Peace
Peace and Self-Control

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor. Despite the horrors of his experience, he found a way to cultivate peace within himself and share it with others. His book Man’s Search for Meaning was one of the bestselling books of the 20th century.

We live in a world full of reactivity, one where there is little space for practicing listening, understanding, and nurturing peace. If we are not careful, this reactivity surrounding us has the potential to infect us and our relationships.

The Frankl quote above reminds us of the difference between reacting and responding. Putting space between something that stimulates or triggers us gives us the capacity to respond rather than react. This is a perfect example of self-control, one of the other fruits of the Spirit.

Try taking a breath, or ten, the next time you want to react immediately to something or someone that irritates or upsets you. Take time to pray, to journal, and reflect. Creating the space you need to form a response provides a greater chance of creating peace rather than escalating conflict.

Making It Personal: How does the quote from Viktor Frankl speak to you? What helps you to honor the space to respond rather than merely reacting? Do you see a connection between Frankl’s quote and cultivating peace that could be helpful to you?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Cultivating Peace

Theme for Week Two
Cultivating Peace

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
- Thomas Merton

Cultivating peace is a two-step process for people of faith. The above quote from Thomas Merton reminds us that peace begins with cultivating peace within ourselves, but it doesn’t stop there. The peace that we cultivate in ourselves, with God’s help, is something we are called to bring into the world.

Yesterday’s reflection by Abi Moon included a poignant story of experiencing conflict with a colleague. In her response, we see how we can choose to reshape the conflict within ourselves. When we do this we can re-engage from a place of peace and centeredness rather than from a place of needing to get even or win an argument.

As with all the fruits of the Spirit, peace is a choice, a decision that starts from deep within the soil of our hearts and then radiates out. We can only offer peace to the world after we have first cultivated it in ourselves. When we seek God’s help in removing the weeds of self-righteousness and pride within us, we are on the path to cultivating peace in all aspects of our lives. 

Making It Personal: Consider a particular relationship or situation where you desire a greater sense of peace. Take a moment to bring that situation to mind and then take some time to pray for guidance on how you can ask for God’s help in removing any barriers to peace you may be experiencing.

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

The Work of Peace

The Second Sunday in Lent
The Work of Peace
Reflection by Abigail W. Moon

Let there be peace on earth And let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson

The song, Let There be Peace on Earth, was first sung at a youth retreat in 1955. Jill Jackson, the composer, deeply desired not only peace in the global community but also within herself. Composing this simple song after her own mental health struggles, the lyrics speak to finding peace within and alongside those beside us.

We live in a world of unrest, violence, and pain, and—if we are being honest—that world has existed since the garden of Eden. Choices that harm ourselves and others distract us from living in harmony with our greater community.

As a person who dislikes conflict, I recently found myself in a heated conversation with a colleague. We both disagreed and there was no common ground to be found. Pain and fracture seemed to be the only outcome of our discussion. I left hurt, sad, and wounded because of the anger and pain of our discussion on both sides. When I got home, I found the bag of daffodil bulbs that had yet to be planted in my yard, so I picked up my gardening gloves and got to work.

Planting in the midst of all the emotions gave me something concrete that I could do as I listened to both my heart and brain wrestling over how to stay in relationship while disagreeing with my colleague. Digging in the dirt gave me a space to find a place for this pain and anger to be transformed with time into something that could bring about beauty and new life. I wasn’t burying my emotions, rather holding them and letting them go so that the experience could bear new fruit.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” He did not say peace-making would be easy work. Peace work begins within tension and can cause more tension as peace is created. In order to be a part of peace, we have to lean toward each other and the common goal of working together to restore community.

The seasons of creation often remind me of the constant renewal and beginning again. Often, I find myself humming simple songs in the midst of stressful times, refocusing my attention to the words and tune, and finding a different sense of peace about the situation and what can be done.

What practices have you adopted that recenter and refocus you to be a peacemaker within yourself, and within your community?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Beginning Again

Cultivating Faithfulness
Beginning Again

Prayer is a small fire lit to keep cold hands warm. Prayer is a practice that flourishes both with faith and doubt. Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.
- Pádraig Ó Tuama

Earlier this week we were reminded that “much of the work of faithfulness happens without anyone noticing.” This idea of keeping at it, even when no one notices, isn’t a popular one in an “influencer culture” where everything is packaged and posted online as a way of advertising one’s various successes and accomplishments.

The gift of Lent is also the challenge of Lent. Lent unfolds at its own pace. We cannot rush it. We have to live it one day at a time. As we learned last Sunday from Brian Cole, faithfulness grows when we tend to the soil of our lives.

One place where we can begin to understand faithfulness is in our own practice of prayer, and this is where the quote from Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama speaks to this gentle understanding. We don’t need to be flashy or perfect in our prayers. We don’t have to get “results.” Sometimes faithfulness is as simple as breathing and sitting—being present to ourselves, to others, and to God. As we discovered yesterday, these simple practices connect in surprising ways, strengthening every area of our life of faith.

We are now over a week into our Lenten pilgrimage. It doesn’t matter if you’ve already slipped a little on those Lenten vows you made back on Ash Wednesday. You can begin again today, and in that beginning, you can restart cultivating faithfulness in your life. In fact, beginning again is what faithfulness is all about!

Making it Personal: How do you want to keep the “small fire of prayer” burning in your heart? What support do you need from your spiritual community? What practices help you begin again when you’ve drifted from your intentions?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Woven Together

Cultivating Faithfulness
Woven Together

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 12:12

We often discover life’s deepest truths in ordinary circumstances. Those times when we realize that everything is connected. A morning meditation that leaves us more patient with our family. A kind word from a friend that opens our hearts to God. A time of peaceful silence that reveals connections we hadn’t noticed before.

Faithfulness works this way too. When we practice being faithful in one area of our lives, other areas begin to flourish. The time we spend in prayer might help us listen more attentively to others. Being reliable in our commitments can build trust in our relationships. Taking care of our physical health often creates space for spiritual growth.

The four dimensions we focus on in Living Compass—heart, soul, strength, and mind—remind us that we are whole beings. We don’t need to compartmentalize our faith or try to perfect one area before moving to another. Instead, we can trust that any step toward faithfulness ripples outward, touching all aspects of our lives.

This interconnection is both a comfort and an invitation. A comfort because we don’t have to do everything at once, and an invitation because every small act of faithfulness can contribute to our overall sense of wellness and wholeness.

Making it Personal: Where have you noticed connections between different areas of your life? How has being faithful in one area spontaneously enriched another? What small act of faithfulness could you practice today?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Faithfulness and Listening

Cultivating Faithfulness
Faithfulness and Listening

God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.
- Mother Teresa

If we pause to think of someone who has been a faithful friend, teacher, pastor, colleague, or family member, it is very likely that one of their defining attributes is being a good listener. 

Mother Teresa tells us that listening is the beginning of prayer. I believe that listening is also the beginning of faithfulness. Being faithful to God and others is grounded in deep listening, a practice that requires us to set aside our desires and egos to focus fully on God or another person. 

When we practice deep listening, our responses will arise from what the other truly needs, rather than from any quick assumptions or judgments we might make about what we think they need.

If the idea of practicing faithfulness seems overwhelming, start with the simple act of becoming a better listener. Practice being still and listening to God with new ears and an open heart.

Practice being present to others, especially with those you have found challenging to listen to in the past. This journey of listening and faithfulness is not just about how deeply we can be present to God and to one another, but can also be a path to personal growth and enlightenment.

Making It Personal: What helps you to be still and to be a good listener? How might you deepen your ability to listen to God? Is there someone in your life with whom you want to practice being a better listener right now?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Walking in Faith

Cultivating Faithfulness
Walking in Faith

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
- Matthew 22:37

Each Wednesday during Lent, we will explore a contemplative spiritual practice to help integrate and deepen our journey. These practices, which can also be found in the back of this devotional on pp. 80-84, offer ways to embody and express the fruit of the Spirit we’re cultivating each week.

The practice of walking meditation has deep roots in many spiritual traditions. Just as a path forms gradually with each footstep, faithfulness grows through consistent practice and steady presence.

Choose a place where you can walk slowly and intentionally for a brief time, perhaps a garden path, a quiet street, or even a room in your home. If walking isn’t accessible for you, find a comfortable place to sit and focus on the inner walk of faith.

Before you begin, select a question about faithfulness to hold gently in your heart, such as “How am I being called to deepen my faithfulness?” or “Where do I see God’s faithfulness in my life?”

As you walk (or sit), notice how your body moves, how your breath flows, how your senses engage with your surroundings. Pay attention to what emerges—thoughts, feelings, memories, or plans. There’s no wrong way to practice—the key is to remain present to your experience.

This practice can open us to wisdom about faithfulness in all dimensions of our lives. Like the small acts of faithfulness we reflected on yesterday, each step becomes a tiny act of devotion.

Making it Personal: When might you set aside time for this walking practice? What question about faithfulness would you like to hold as you walk, or sit? How might a regular contemplative practice help cultivate the soil of faithfulness in your life?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Being Faithful in Small Ways

Cultivating Faithfulness
Being Faithful in Small Ways

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.
- Luke 16:10

To be faithful is to be consistent in small and big ways over time. To call a friend faithful means that the friend has been there for us through many ups and downs, through some of the most significant moments of our lives, as well as many of the mundane ones.

Much of the work of faithfulness happens without anyone noticing. There is a saying that you can best judge a person’s character by knowing how they act when no one is around, when there is absolutely nothing to be gained by their actions. As Brian Cole wrote, faithfulness is not about appearances but about being deeply grounded in the Real.

Jesus taught that whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much. This is good news because it means we don’t have to focus on big heroic acts of faithfulness, but instead can focus on the “little” things, such as how we speak to everyone we meet, the choices we make to nurture our spiritual lives, and the small act of compassion we might offer to someone in need today. Over time, such small acts of faithfulness create not just a series of kind acts, but a soil of faithfulness from which all the fruits of the Spirit can continue to thrive. 

Making it Personal: Consider a small act of faithfulness that someone, maybe even a stranger, has done for you recently. With this in mind, is there a small act of faithfulness that you wish to do for someone today? What do you think of the idea that “whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much”?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

Cultivating Faithfulness

Theme for Week One
Cultivating Faithfulness

In cultivating a life of faithfulness, a life where good fruit grows in us, we are not called to be satisfied with appearances. I do not want simply to appear to be joyful, to have discovered a way to fake patience. I want those to be fruits growing from a deep soil in me.
- Brian Cole

For the first full week of Lent, we will focus on the fruit of faithfulness. We start with this fruit because faithfulness provides the rich soil from which all other fruits of the Spirit grow. 

An online search for synonyms for the word faithful yields the following: trustworthy, consistent, persevering, honest, resolute, steadfast, true, sincere, dependable, and conscientious. Who doesn’t aspire to live a life described in this way?

In yesterday’s reflection, Brian Cole reminded us that faithfulness is not something that can be done for appearance. It cannot be faked. Faithfulness, like a well-tended garden, requires a depth of commitment and character over time.

And faithfulness does not protect us from adversity but prepares us for it, as we see in the story of Jesus facing temptation in the wilderness. Just as Jesus’ preparation wasn’t for the wilderness specifically, but came from being “fully with God,” our faithfulness grows from that same deep connection.

At many churches in the service for adult baptism, the person being baptized promises to live a life of faith with the words, “I will, with God’s help.” As we commit to a life of faithfulness this Lent and beyond, may we also affirm that with God’s help, this is our shared journey.

Making it Personal: What words would you use to describe faithfulness? Who has modeled faithfulness for you? How did they do that? What help do you need from others and from God now to cultivate greater faithfulness?

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness

The Soil of Faithfulness

The First Sunday in Lent
The Soil of Faithfulness
Reflections by Brian Cole

Do not begin by trying to grow asparagus. Care and tend for the soil where asparagus will flourish. The good asparagus will come.
- Brian Cole

Susan, my wife, is a gardener. For the first several years of our marriage, we lived on a large family property next door to her sister. Together, Susan and her sister tended a vegetable garden.

When we lived in such proximity to the garden, one my sister-in-law had cultivated for decades, I learned the significance of feeding the soil. If the soil is healthy, then the good growth is a kind of afterthought. The objective is not asparagus. Do not begin by trying to grow asparagus. Care and tend for the soil where asparagus will flourish. The good asparagus will come.

This is where time and preparation matter. You do not grow healthy fruits and vegetables overnight. Healthy food, good fruit, comes from a slow process. For a time, it will appear that nothing is happening. But in that nothing time, many things, unseen, are happening.

In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is tempted by the devil in the wilderness. For forty days, in the wilderness, the devil tempts him. Forty days seems like a long time until you place it against the rest of Jesus’ life before the Spirit led him into the wilderness.

For all the time prior to the forty days in the wilderness, only good soil was growing in Jesus. The Scriptures were also good food. Jesus was fully one with the Spirit of God. Jesus was not preparing for the wilderness; Jesus was fully with God, the good and whole soil growing.

When the testing in the wilderness arrived, Jesus responded from the depth of a cultivated life. The testing gave witness to the complete depth of God’s Story and God’s Word fully in Jesus.

In cultivating a life of faithfulness, a life where good fruit grows in us, we are not called to be satisfied with appearances. I do not want simply to appear to be joyful, to have discovered a way to fake patience. I want those to be fruits growing from a deep soil in me.

Consider that your life is a garden, a place set apart for growth. The objective is not asparagus, but patience and joy and gentleness and self-control. If those fruits are to be real, they will take time.

You grow good fruit by cultivating the soil of your life. By trusting that you are worth the effort—to rise early to pray, to embrace your human limits, to seek a quiet place where nothing appears to be happening.

In the nothing season, when the fruit of the Spirit is quietly growing in you, God is preparing you to be a person of depth, grounded in the Real.

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Listen To Our Lent Podcast Episodes

We also invite you to listen to the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast hosted by Scott Stoner. This is a year-round, weekly podcast; however, during Lent, there will be two new episodes each week to enrich your experience of our Lenten readings on Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit.

You can listen to the podcast on our website by clicking HERE. You can also find this podcast in your favorite podcast listening app (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)—just search for Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness