The desert has always been my least favorite geography. I live within 25 minutes of a beach and within 90 minutes of the mountains. I am also about 90 minutes away from the desert, but I had to look that up on a map because I purposely do not go there. The desert is hot and dry and sand colored. Plus, there’s cactus. I know that people have worked hard to bring water into the desert and there are plenty of oasis-type places there. But the desert is still the desert. So the question is...

Many years ago, when I was in the toughest part of my counseling experience, an image emerged in my imagination that perfectly illustrated the difficult dynamic I felt. Picture a dark room and at the center is a banquet table with a black tablecloth on it. On the table are scattered items that represent the various memories and stories from your past. 

Each week, in a one hour session, my counselor and I would pick up one of the memories, look at it, take it apart, put it back together...

Welcome to an Inhaling Grace audiobook episode of the Unhurried Living podcast. Here are the next three devotionals from Inhaling Grace. May you sense the real presence of God shepherding you as you listen.

One of our core values and key practices as Unhurried Living is learning to live and lead from the intersection of deep-rooted inner life and more-fruitful outer life. Prayer and work are not separate menu items you have to choose between. They are not a swing on which you go back and forth between two extremes. 

They are, instead, an integrated, organic, living reality. They are not two things. They are one thing. We pray in the midst of our work. Our work is a way of living in...

Last Fall, Alan made an eight-day silent retreat at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Mass. While there, he came across a book he’d read a long time back: Parker Palmer’s The Active Life. He read some of it while he enjoyed those prayerful days in November, quietly sitting next to a little bay on which this retreat is situated. What he learned is today’s theme: Cultivating a Productive Rhythm of Action and Contemplation.

“Sylvia in Austin has learned that she is in control not of life, but of the story about her life.“ (Mary Pipher in Women Rowing North)

After our return from Africa, I could personalize this line like this: “Gem in Amsterdam has learned that she is in control not of life, but of the story about her life.”

I am going to try to make a long story short, so put on your seatbelt. This is the glamour of travel. On our way to Africa, we were re-routed from Newark due to...

Here are the next three devotionals from Inhaling Grace. May you sense the real presence of God shepherding you as you listen.

There are many words of command in scripture that stir and inspire Christian leaders. We love words that invite us to action like “go,” “teach” or “work.” Language like this usually feels like an easy fit for many Christian leaders. 

But there is at least one word of command in scripture that causes many Christian leaders no small level of anxiety. Listen to how David uses it in the last few lines of one of his psalms: 

I remain confident of this:...

Nature is constantly offering advice on how to live our lives. A brief, still moment in the backyard, listening to and watching birds. The random, mundane anthill passed by on a morning walk. Life wisdom is everywhere.

The question then becomes - are you paying attention?

When Alan and I were in the early stages of writing What Does Your Soul Love? (releasing September 17), we spent a week in a Utah cabin outlining the entire project. This cabin was remote, with no internet or cell phone coverage. There was one old-fashioned plugged-into-the-wall phone in case we needed to communicate with the outside world. 

It was absolutely quiet except for the blowing wind, the chirping birds and a noisy chipmunk who hung out in the tree on the side yard. I was raised...