Dear friends,

What did the kingdom of God mean to Jesus? And what are we desiring when we make our lives a prayer for it to come on earth?

These questions probe to the heart of Jesus’s third spiritual practice: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the excerpt below from Flourishing on the Edge of Faith, I unpack the first and most important sign of God’s kingdom according to Jesus: countercultural love.

Jesus’s vision of the kingdom is so beautiful, so surprising, and so hopeful. This week, I hope you’ll join me in practicing Jesus’s prayer every day and let the kingdom of God infiltrate your desire.

A quick update first…

Last week, the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Ethiopia invited me to speak at their Human Fraternity Webinar. The topic was how faith can foster a culture of tolerance, solidarity, and cooperation in Ethiopia and around the world.

This was a very timely conversation... Read More

Dear friends,

This week I’m delighted to share an excerpt from chapter two of Flourishing on the Edge of Faith.

This section faces head-on what’s at stake in the second line of Jesus’s prayer: the human tendency to weaponize God. In response, Jesus teaches us to pray “Hallowed be your name.” I call this a practice of radical reverence, and here’s the heart of it:

I warmly invite you to practice Jesus’s prayer every day in 2023, and I’d be thrilled if Flourishing could accompany your journey. It’s available at BitterSweetBooks, Audible, Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and all major booksellers.

Two quick updates before the excerpt below:

First, warm thanks to Lynn Dugan and her book club for starting 2023 with Flourishing. Their feedback was so encouraging, and I’m delighted the book’s study guide (Appendix 3) is making it so easy to discuss. If you’re part of a small group, consider reading Flourishing together in 2023... Read More

Dear friends,

How do we flourish with an embodied faith in an age of disenchantment, doubt, anxiety, and conflict?

This is one the key questions at the heart of my recent interview with Zach Elliott about my new book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. If you’ve been wondering why I wrote this book and what it’s really about, this is a great place to start. Lily loved it 🙂

Zach always makes me feel so at home on “Life and Beauty: The Podcast” and asks such refreshingly honest, insightful questions. Together we explore doubt, the embodied nature of Jesus’s prayer, the epidemic of othering in society today, and how praying with Jesus is a powerful, healing practice for flourishing in the midst of anxiety, addictions to control, and polarization.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you’ll listen in. Look for LAB: The Podcast Episode 125 wherever you listen to podcasts, including on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Podcasts... Read More

Dear friends,

Last week, I invited you to join me in practicing Jesus’s prayer every day in 2023. Jesus promises us that our lives come home and flourish when we practice his words (Matthew 7:24).

This week, I’m delighted to share an excerpt from Flourishing on the Edge of Faith about the first moment in Jesus’s prayer: “Our Father.” This is where our flourishing begins and always comes home. I call it a practice of divine belovedness.

If you’d like a companion as you pray with Jesus, Flourishing is available from all major booksellers around the world, including:

• BitterSweetBooks (Publisher’s Edition)
• Audible (read by yours truly)
• Kindle
• Barnes & Noble

If you enjoy Flourishing, kindly give it a 5-star rating and brief review on Amazon and/or your favorite online book platform? This will help more people discover it, and I’d be so grateful.

Thank you for joining me in practicing flourishing with Jesus in 2023!

May you flourish,

Andrew

“You Are My Beloved Child”

Jesus’s invitation to call God our Father is rooted in perhaps the most intimate, important moment of his own life – a moment that he invites us to share with him in prayer... Read More

Dear friends,

I have an invitation for you.

I want to invite you to begin each day of 2023 with a simple spiritual practice. It’s the brilliant prayer that Jesus taught his students at the beginning of his public movement. Jesus promised that anyone who practices these words will flourish (Matthew 7:24).

I’ve practiced Jesus’s prayer for many years. And I’ve found that it’s a powerful exercise for a delightful, sustaining, fierce flourishing. Praying with Jesus has so inspired me that I wrote Flourishing on the Edge of Faith as an accessible reintroduction to Jesus’s spiritual practice for our time. I believe it’s the key to the beautiful life that Jesus himself embodied and promises us still today.

When we allow its water to sink deep into every area of our lives, this prayer irrigates an integrated human maturity in us. Our deepest desires and greatest fears, our highest hopes and most intimate vulnerabilities are reconnected. Our roots go deep into nourishing ground-waters, our lives begin to open, and a fruitful flowering bursts out of us... Read More