Why can't I just be content? You can't be truly happy when you are in two places at once.

Why can't I just be content?

It misrepresents God when we tell victims of atrocious, life-changing abuse to simply forgive and forget. Forgiveness of any wrong, let alone a life-shattering one, is never a “just do it” task.

Wanting 101: No Desiring Allowed How the neuroscience of dopamine can help us navigate the Ten Commandments and why how "covet" doesn't quite get the point across.

Wanting 101: No Desiring Allowed
open.substack.com/pub/murphyal...

This week I wrote about some ways the Church can realize its theological commitments in a really concrete, local way. Click here to read: murphyalvis.substack.com/p/church-in-...

What is Spiritual Formation? Spiritual formation has gained popularity among people interested in deeper discipleship over the past 30 years. But what is it?

I have lived in the spiritual formation space for the past 7 years, and I have pursued both a Masters and I'm in process for a doctoral degree in this field of study. It's powerful stuff, but it sounds vague. In this post I try my best to answer the question "what is spiritual formation?"

“Regulating your nervous system is a subversive act in a late stage capitalist society whose very existence depends on individual and collective dysregulation.”

@ryankuja

Confession is one of the most important spiritual disciplines we can practice, but the misconception is that confession is strictly about sin.

Find out why here: murphyalvis.substack.com/p/confession...

#spiritualformation #spiritualdisciplines #spiritualpractices #confession #theology #formation

The one practice in the spiritual life that can help learn to tell the truth and discern falsehood more than any other. And why I think it might get a bad rap.

The disciplines I have found to be most powerful are interpersonal and contextual, ones that hit us where we really are and not where we aren't.

Please read, subscribe, and share!

#spirituality #spiritualdisciplines #spiritualformation

I substituted being needed for being wanted, and that trade sucked. Why feeling felt trumps being needed every time and how others play a big role in helping us feel like we belong.

“Interconnectedness is core to who we are. Our being received and feeling felt is not something added to our humanity: it is essential to our humanity. From the beginning each of us is in a process of getting to know someone out there.” #spiritualformation #theology

Do Wealth and Education Protect You from Loneliness? I'm skeptical

Today's free post is about the intersection of loneliness, income, and education. My suspicion is that rather than protect you from loneliness, wealth and education help you better mask your loneliness from yourself.

I told them I was leaving, and I used a spiritual-sounding theological word to hide. How the words we choose to describe our process may or may not do that, and how leaning into honesty is the way forward

If you are interested in Christian spiritual formation, I’d love to have you be part of the reading community forming over on Substack.

I told them I was leaving, and I used a spiritual-sounding theological word to hide. How the words we choose to describe our process may or may not do that, and how leaning into honesty is the way forward

There are meanings for words, and the way we use words. Then there is the “why” we use words. This is a reflection on the formational implications of the word discernment, and how that word helps and hurts us.

New post going up on Substack on Monday at 9am CST. Jesus does a lot of surprising things in the Gospels, but the most surprising are the most ordinary.

You (probably) don’t need to poke your eye out Maybe lust is about more than our body parts

There are a number of challenging texts in the Bible, and some are also bizarre. However, extremes exist for the sake of clarity. This is a short reflection on a passage like this, and deals with a vital topic in our discipleship: desire.

open.substack.com/pub/murphyal...

open.substack.com/pub/murphyal...