The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things

by Leighton Ford

Publisher:

IVP Formatio

, 2013

Overview

Your attention, please.That’s what God wants, Leighton Ford discovered. It’s the path to becoming like Christ.Distractions, fear and busyness were keeping Ford from seeing God’s work in and around him. He was missing God. So he began a journey of longing and looking for God. And it started with paying attention.In these pages, he invites you to journey with him. Using the rich monastic tradition of praying the hours, Ford will walk with you, helping you pay attention to God’s work in you and around you throughout each day and in different seasons of your life.If you’re busy, distracted, rushing through each day, you might be feeling disconnected from God, unable to see how he’s working. You might be missing him. But the way toward him starts with a pause and a prayer—with intention and attention—and becomes a way of life, awake and alive to the peaceful, powerful presence of God.

Contents

An Introduction: Short Flights and Quick Returns
One Who Paid Attention: C. S. Lewis Looking Along a Beam

1. Paying Attention: The Hours of Our Lives
One Who Paid Attention: Simone Weil on a Postage Stamp

2. The Birthing Hour: Time Before Time
One Who Paid Attention: Vincent Donovan--the Masai Chief, the Missionary and the Lion God

3. Daybreak: The Hour of Beginnings
One Who Paid Attention: The Teacher Who Took Off His Hat

4. Prime Time: Our Root System
One Who Paid Attention: My Spiritual Director Dog

5. Active Life: A Slower Pace in a Faster World
One Who Paid Attention: Kierkegaard?s Lanterns, Fireworks and Stars

6. The Noonday Demon: Our Distractible Selves
One Who Paid Attention: How Mother Teresa Kept Going

Holy Stillness: An Interlude

7. When Shadows Come: Darkness Comes Early
One Who Paid Attention: Jerry Sittser Trying to Catch the Sun

8. Lighting the Lamps: The House with Golden Windows
One Who Paid Attention: Nouwen, a Restless Prophet

9. Grandfather Time: When Evening Comes
One Who Paid Attention: Hwee Hwee Tan, Becoming What We Look At

Epilogue: The Journey Home

Appendix: Observing the Hours

Notes

In Attention to Gratitude

Permissions

Praise for The Attentive Life

Ford examines how distractions of our post-modern world rob us of the time we spend with God. Through this easy-flowing book, he leads one into the practice of attentiveness, pointing out that the best and deepest things of life come through attentive waiting. Appropriate for both new Christians and those of long-time faith.

This book will take more than one reading to absorb its richness. Personal illustrations, an abundance of thought-provoking quotes, and memorable object lessons make this a book that may become a contemporary classic.

Using the richt tradition of praying the hours, Ford will walk with you, helping you pay attention to God’s work in you and around you throughout each day and in different seasons of your life.

The Attentive Life chronicles [Ford’s] new desire to “be attentive” and more deeply nurture a viable set of practices that facilitate such spiritual intimacy with God. The Attentive Life is a perfect example of the kinds of things the Formatio line is about. We highly recommend it.

"Those who appreciate contemplative, gentle, insightful focus into the spiritual life will enjoy this partly autobiographical work."

"Ford expresses in an almost poetic manner the peace that comes with the continual observation of and attentiveness to the presence of God."

"[A] distinctly Protestant addition to the tradition of monastic spirituality."

Product Details

• Title : The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things
• Author: Ford, Leighton
• Publisher: IVP Books
• Publication Date: 2013
• ISBN: 9780830896448

About Leighton Ford

Leighton Ford is president of Leighton Ford Ministries, which seeks to help young leaders worldwide to lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus. For many years, Ford communicated Christ around the globe through speaking, writing and media outreach, addressing millions of people in thirty-seven countries on every continent. He served from 1955 until 1985 as Associate Evangelist and later Vice President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and was featured as the alternate speaker to Billy Graham on the Hour of Decision broadcast. He served for nearly twenty years as chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, an international body of Christian leaders. The author or co-author of numerous books, including Transforming Leadership and The Attentive Life, Ford lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife Jean.