Although I have incorporated exercise into my weekly routine and appreciate the benefits associated with physical activity, I sometimes still struggle to find the motivation to run or ride bikes with my children. I can always find a good excuse, or even a bad one, not to go. Giving myself that freedom helps me to keep from feeling burdened by a rigid schedule. However, every time I make the effort to exercise, there is always some benefit, even if it as small as being able to affirm I made a healthy choice.

How might God’s Spirit be inviting you to engage with the spiritual disciplines? How can you incorporate these disciplines into the rhythm of your spiritual life?

On our most challenging days, through faith, we can remember God is present even in the most difficult parts of the journey.

As we venture on our journey, we find encouragement from this prayer of blessing from Paul to the church at Colossae: “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light” (colossians 1:9–12).