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We are about to go to our friends’ house to watch the Super Bowl. There are a few things I want to tell you.

“What are you reading?” the boy asked, pointing at the pictures in my book. My graphic novel wasn’t toddler appropriate, so I replied, “It’s about superheroes!” “Wow,” he whispered, reverently. His mother, sitting next to him on the train, gently prodded, “You like superheroes!” He nodded vigorously.

I was feeling a little stuck. You’ve been a Christian your whole life, I told myself in a mini pep talk. You should know how to have a meaningful quiet time, a deep prayer life, a correct perception of God. But the truth was, the practices that had been helpful in the past no longer were.

You can hear from God. I bet no one’s ever sat you down and explicitly (and bravely) said that out loud, to your face, because no one wants to look bad if you take a risk to listen for God’s voice and then don’t hear anything. 

In January at our blog, we’ve been looking at spiritual practices that can open us to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives.

Why is this day different from other days? Why is it that on all other days I set an alarm, but on this day I sleep in and take an afternoon nap?

“Practicing spiritual disciplines is life altering,” said Stephen Smith, InterVarsity alumnus and InterVarsity Press author.

My wife has a cherished collection of hand-painted, fine china tea cups that she keeps on the top shelf of a cupboard. These cups are kept separate from our ordinary coffee mugs and brought down from their place of safety and display on special occasions.

“No, I can’t. I’m so busy.” Those words are almost a reflex for us. A habit. A way for us to communicate our plight to someone else in five easy words or less. But never before has a more vague response been accepted and reciprocated by so many people to get out of all sorts of things. 

I get the same answer almost every time: “Bible study and prayer.” The scene looks like this: I sit down over coffee with a student who’s stuck in their walk with Christ, bored with the Christian life, and struggling to hear from or care about Jesus at all...