Jim Young

How to Live a Holy Life is a devotional by long-time Pastor Jim Young, of Show Low, Arizona. Pastor Jim provides over 160 short devotions on the challenges and the grace that are the daily life of a Christian. Useful for reading on the fly, as well as for a launching point for deeper study, How to Live a Holy Life contains thoughts and musings gathered over a lifetime of devotion to God. This is a greatly expanded edition of an earlier work published privately in 2022.

"An intense imaginative power in these fictional short stories draws its sustenance from the author dreaming great dreams."

In our "conversations," Rumi speaks with ease-as a gentle breeze, softly and lovingly vibrating my heartstrings.Rumi's poetry is the starting point for listening inwardly to resonance that links us as One. That sets Wisdom free in its innate beauty-affirming the true essence of spiritual reality.I encourage you to eavesdrop on my conversations with Rumi, letting what you discern stimulate the depths of spiritual awareness for you. You may even come to practice a means of listening-really listening-for yourself.

The following renderings come from contemplating a photograph or memory that etched its meaning on the lining of my heart, created somewhere, sometime, all in a moment's embrace of life portrayed. For me, photography is special form of poetry all its own-as are memories. As with life itself, treating the photographs and memories as opportunities for meditative translation, poetic imagination frees itself to nourish as soul expressed, I simply get out of my own way and allow the inner Voice to speak through my fingers as they run over the keys of my laptop. My hope for you is that you'll let inward awareness speak as your innate Voice and cast into the Universe your own imaginings with endless grace and abundance.

God's Pocket Dictionary (Newly Expanded) evolved by listening inwardly for the "still, small Voice," and scribing the inspirational messages clearly received. Each reframed description turns ordinary meaning on its ear, rendering spiritual sensitivity that resonates at the soul level. These poetic connections can be used as meditations, to lighten your day, or to initiate stimulating conversations with friends that are sure to shift the mundane to the sacred.

After observing his fellow humans for many years, author Jim Young realized that there are essentially two types of people: gulpers and sippers. The gulpers live as though everything has been promised to them. They eat and drink and devour relationships until nothing is left, and they are still not fulfilled. The sippers, on the other hand, appreciate the flavor in every morsel and the beauty in every moment. They savor everything from food to time itself. This book honors sipping and savoring. Young has previously written on a wide range of topics, from self-help to spirituality. In Sip and Savor, Young presents brief selections from eighteen of his books. Some of the topics he tackles include the following: cultivating your inner awareness, recognizing the unimportance of others' views of you, understanding religious texts as metaphors instead of fact, discovering the highest form of self, living true to your own nature, and extending out into the universe. Through these essays, short scenes, and even poems, Young demonstrates the importance of the authentic self. He examines what it means to be human and live an inwardly empowered life. Each carefully chosen excerpt reveals another essential facet of this continuing exploration.