A few weeks ago I came across a blog post entitled, ” A Simple Pattern of Spiritual Formation” ( http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/a-simple-pattern-of-spiritual-formation }.  As you might expect that caught my attention.  It mentioned a book by Skye Jethani, With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God.  I have not read the book yet but I wanted to share a quote from the book posted on that blog.

“By studying the spiritual development of children, Jerome Berryman outlined a simple but insightful pattern that I believe applies equally well to adults. When given quiet, contemplative spaces, children will more often report a sense of God’s presence with them. This resulted in Berryman’s first exclamation, ‘ahh!’—a sense of wonder and awe. ‘This sigh,’ he said, ‘suggests the presence of the nourishing mystery that feeds and yet overwhelms us with awe.’

“As our minds with their cognitive ability catch up to the experience, there is a second exclamation, ‘aha!’—discovery. We come to recognize God more fully, and with him we discover new truths about ourselves and the world around us.

“These discoveries result in joy—the exclamation of ‘haha!’ Our dreary and frightening vision of the world is replaced with a joy beyond understanding. Finally, this cycle of awe, discovery, and joy compels us back into a posture of anticipation and silence so we might be with God once again.”

When given quiet, contemplative spaces –

    ahh – wonder and awe

    aha – discovery

    haha – joy

What do you think?  Can such discovery come when we enter that space?

“He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven'”. Matthew 18:2-4