Jeremy was running late for church. He had been out late the night before and had overslept, but he wanted to get there on time to attend his young professionals Sunday School class. Although he did not have many good friends there, he still felt it important as a Christian to be there.

But he could not leave without attending to some urgent business email messages from his accountant. He first checked over the attached financial statements from his small manufacturing business. The picture he saw was a bit worrisome. There was enough money for the month’s payroll, but he was still uncertain about sales in the coming months. The email from his accountant recommended that they lay off a couple of people to save money. One of the persons in line to be laid off was a single mom who would be struggling financially without the job. What to do? He quickly made the decision to go ahead. As Jeremy sent the email, he was feeling a little bit sorry to have to do it, but he was trying to run the business on a sound financial basis and did not want to let emotions cloud his judgment.

Driving to church allowed Jeremy time to think about the class discussion he was about to join. His Sunday School class had been talking for several weeks about how to develop a deeper personal relationship with Christ and cultivate a more meaningful spiritual life through prayer and personal devotions. They had even branched into some discussion of contemplative spirituality and centering prayer as ways to cultivate their inner spiritual lives. The thought of this evoked conflicting feelings. On one side, this sounded unrealistic and distant from his daily life (and also a bit “fringy”). On the other side, he was concerned and motivated regarding the state of his spirituality and his soul.

When Jeremy arrived, it was prayer time and the class was sharing requests. One person asked prayer for Roger who was still going through chemotherapy. Jeremy had gotten to know Roger recently through the class and he was glad to have come in time to hear about Roger because he hadn’t known that Roger had cancer.