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

Leighton Ford is President of Leighton Ford Ministries, which seeks to help young leaders worldwide to lead more Jesus and more 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 broadcast. Ford describes his current mission to be "an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey." He served for nearly twenty years as chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, an international body of Christian leaders. He chairs the Sandy Ford Fund and has served as a board member for World Vision U. S., the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He received the 1990 Two Hungers Award, recognizing his contributions to addressing the physical and spiritual hungers of people around the world. In 1985 he was selected as Clergyman of the Year by Religious Heritage of America and singled him out as being "among the most influential preachers of an active gospel." The author or co-author of numerous books, including and Ford lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife Jean.

Leighton Ford heads 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. He describes his current mission to be "an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey." He is the author of Transforming Leadership.

Your attention, please.

That's what God wants, Leighton Ford discovered. It's the path to becoming like Christ.

Distractions and 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 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.

Ford would seem an unlikely candidate to write a gentle, moving introduction to traditional monastic spirituality. As Billy Graham’s brother-in-law and frequent stand-in, Ford’s evangelical bona fides are unquestionable. Yet he describes the details of life at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina, with the eye of the avid amateur painter he also is. Reading this book you’ll find yourself scribbling down prayers from obscure medieval figures like a certain St. Fursey. Ford is also appealing as he describes odd gestures he’s willing to make in search of the God who’s present in the everyday: hugging a tree, hugging himself in an airport with passersby all around, revealing his own struggles with his image and how to pursue God rather than his own self-aggrandizement. He does make a distinctly Protestant addition to the tradition of monastic spirituality, insisting that the most rigorous of spiritual practices are for all believers. The few missteps are slight: Ford’s references to his heavy travel schedule and frequent vacations do threaten to make this feel like a spirituality for the upper-middle class only, and his readings of scripture tend to the emotive and literal. (May)Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

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. -- LW, Libraries Alive, Winter 2009

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. -- JZ, Church Libraries, Fall 2008

"A spirit of ecumenism informs Ford's gracefully written guide to thoughtful prayer and attentiveness to God's voice." -- Library Journal, March 1, 2008

. . . A wonderfully compelling invitation to a life of prayer . . . Ford know how to share the "hours" with witful intelligence, charm and winsome conviction. This delightfully well-written book [will] provide any group with a host of insights, provocations, and layered viewpoints for discussion. -- Praying Daily (prayingdaily.blogspot.com), August 11, 2008

This book is special. It stretches the soul and makes "everything a prayer." -- Lamplighter, August 2008

Filled with examples of those who "paid attention," Ford's evangelical bona fides are unquestionable and well worth reading. -- The Christian Courier, August 2008

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. -- Alice Brasky on Book Bargains and Previews, June 1008

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. -- Byron Borger, Hearts Minds Books, April 30, 2008

"Those who appreciate contemplative, gentle, insightful focus into the spiritual life will enjoy this partly autobiographical work." -- Anita Cain, CBA Retailers + Resources, May 2008

"Ford expresses in an almost poetic manner the peace that comes with the continual observation of and attentiveness to the presence of God." -- Heidi L. Ippolito, Christian Retailing, April 21, 2008

"[A] distinctly Protestant addition to the tradition of monastic spirituality." -- Publishers Weekly, March 10, 2008