Donna’s Review of God Space: Embracing the Inconvenient Adventure of Intimacy with God by Keri Wyatt Kent.
God Space fitting God into our crowded everyday life. Keri shares with us seven practices. Everyone seems to be into simplicity and minimalism right now. This book focuses more on your life and time versus actual things. She also challenges us not to have this be motivated by legalism.
Below I share my thoughts on four of the seven practices.
Sabbath: space in my calendar. The first one is about honoring the Sabbath day. She shares that for her that’s the day that she’s never too busy for what she’s doing. She focuses 100% in the moment. She does is from sun-up to sundown so she also has time to get ready for work once the sun goes down. Many people were saying that they have toddlers and they’re not able to do this. She challenged us that toddlers could easily be compared to social media and the constant this digital distractions. Another recommendation is to take a digital Sabbath which is simply taking a break from technology. Another tip was to say no. We have heard this many times and I think we all still struggle with it. Keri gives the advice to say ‘let me think about it’. I am in a bible study about my mission and our teacher challenges us that we should say yes to things that align with our mission.
Hospitality: space in my home. This was one of my favorite learnings that I have been sharing with friends -hospitality is not entertaining. It’s about an openness to allow people to come on in. Hospitality is not about entertaining it’s about loving others as God has loved us. Not being Martha Stewart (my words, not hers)
She mentioned having dinner as a family together and I am a firm supporter of this. I feel it really makes a difference and helps you connect as a family unit.
She mentions that there is research that the kids do better when they have dinner around that table together on a regular basis. She recommended banning all phones and devices from the dinner table. I still struggle with this.
Simplicity: space in my soul, In this chapter she makes a good point that people confuse organizing and simplifying with simplicity. Almost all of the articles you see about simplicity are about organizing. Truly its about having less worry, less distraction so that you’re living in more simplicity. It’s about the simplicity in our soul. She says the biggest barrier to simplicity is worry. I found her discussion about friendships very enlightening. She mentions about being upset about losing your friendship. Something she mentioned was saying thank you for blessing my life for a season of friendship. She gave a personal example of visualizing telling a friend thank you and letting her go. She also mentioned that being busy makes us feel significant and I definitely think I can fall into that category. Again we should say no to some of the opportunities brought to us. (a reminder from my bible study to say yes to the requests that align with your mission). Choose simplicity when it comes to your calendar.
Gratitude: space in my relationships. She had wonderful stories about always accepting people on Thanksgiving. She talked about self-care which for her was running which I can totally relate to. I loved her point that she was not just a person who runs, she is a runner. She reminds us that self-care differs from self-absorption. We need to take care of ourselves; mentally and physically.
I recommend GodSpace. It is a quick read and I think you will pick up some nuggets that you can put into practice. The practices are not overwhelming; just the opposite.
Keri Wyatt Kent is the author of GodSpace, and ten other books. She makes a living creating content of all kinds, and enjoys reading, running, and cooking. She loves living in Chicago because of the weather.
