Just as your body builds up toxins over time that will make you ill, so can your spiritual life become toxic and unhealthy. Author Peter Graystone, whose writing I have recently become acquainted with, published a devotional book in May that will help you detoxify your spiritual life. It is called Detox Your Spiritual Life in 40 Days. Graystone is part of the leadership team at Emmanuel Church in South Croydon, England, and works for the Church of England, helping congregations with evangelism.
The book contains 40 short devotionals organized into six themes:
- Detox your body
- Detox your standards
- Detox your past
- Detox your expectations
- Detox your relationships
- Detox your spiritual life
Interspersed in each devotional are text boxes that contain scriptures or quotes related to each devotional. Each devotional ends with a practical action you can take to detox your life and a short one or two-sentence prayer.
Graystone’s writing is very engaging. He includes many stories from his own experience (often very entertaining) and reflects on some biblical material. Several passages were memorable for me. For instance, I appreciated these closing words from his devotional that exhorts us to “Think About Death”:
Death is the great leveler and bringer of justice, but we could never be wholly fulfilled if death had the last word. Death doesn’t have the last word. Death has the last word but one. God is planning to have the last word. I don’t believe that lightly or without wavering, but I can confidently let go of friends whom I will not see on earth again. The Christian faith holds that the last word is going to be “hello.” (115)
His wit and insight in these thought-provoking devotionals are of the variety that I expect I will be able to revisit and learn something new from them each time. Detox is a book I suspect I will pull off my shelf for devotional reflection more than once over the coming years.
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