There is likewise a timing in building. The breaking down of the old and the cleaning out of the rubbish accumulated over the past must precede new construction. Repentance is the first condition of a new heart; we must turn from in order to fully turn to. To rush the job by leaving out the first steps may result in delay or damage to the intended project.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Jeremiah 13:16: Give glory to the LORD your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. (KJV) 

To become blind is the ultimate nightmare for the visual artist; to become spiritually blind the ultimate judgment on our art. No one who intends to reach the heights ought to plan the journey in darkness; when your world is turning to grey, be very careful where you walk.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Isaiah 24:19: The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. (KJV) Centuries ago such extreme statements were held up as evidence of the archaic and ignorant nature of Scripture. Where, men said, would you ever get a fire hot enough to melt the earth? More to the point, what could rip apart (untie) the very elements, the building-blocks of matter? So they argued in a pre-atomic age. Now we hope we can hold it in check.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Three disqualifications .... mirror the concerns of three men that came to Christ seeking to be His followers. They involve daily cares... the security of a house, a loved one and personal safety. And what is wrong with having a vineyard, building a house and having someone you love waiting in the wings? It is not always the bad things that take us from the best. It is not just unrighteousness but our own righteousness, not just wrongs but unyielded rights that cause us to lose focus in the war and lose our life in seeking to save it. God never said, “You shall have no other bad gods before Me.” Just gods. 

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

...There was this guy now on the beach. He had a fire going and seemed like he saw them there all catching nothing and he said, “Kids - you catch anything?” What does Jesus know about fish? Peter did what he told them to do; cast the net on the other side. The net almost broke with the fish. Yes, Jesus does know something about fish. Actually about anything and everything. And tides. And oceans. And fishing. He is much more than the Messiah. And He still calls people to fish today, and one of His gifts is rooted in Who He is and God is the Fisher. Do you have the calling? Millions fish today around the world. And so certainly also does God. 

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

In the calling of a warrior always remember this; that this gift you are given from God is not to be the one the world is to take as its ultimate treasure. The war in which you must now fight and in which others too may die is not to be the final focus of the future. As we are called not to be mere pacifists but peacemakers, so also our ultimate end is not to be forever exalting blood and death but the end of conflict in which weapons now are no longer needed.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Often almost unnoticed in Scripture is the one Divine thing that cannot be counterfeited in life. While various forms of false fun and many prevailing perversions of pleasure are sought as proposed purposes for enjoyment, none of these can bring what will be finally seen as something most fundamentally supernatural. It does not depend on circumstance. It transcends any human expectation from any exterior provision. It may function in the most frightful onslaughts of fear, a formidable enemy fury or ongoing furnace of pain. It is joy.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

...Here, (unlike some posing purple pansies promoted as “precious” and “pure” in the supposed world of the holy) are real warrior descriptions; bands of brothers; fathers of families; men of might, portraits of valor; chosen as the chief and the choice, apt to the war and fit to go out and fight. 

...These are they whom God recorded as His representatives in battle. They all bear the colors of their calling, the reputation of their rankings, the marks of their military reality. “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.” (Flanders Fields)

From the Chapter, "God is a Warrior"

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

It is not only right to ask God for wisdom and inspiration in our work; it is part of the original precedent. The power of the Holy Spirit is not only for ministry in special circumstances and spiritual situations; it is also given on a day-by-day basis to those not only conscious of His calling, but conscious of their dependence on Him in faith.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

It is the binding and weaving work around an empty place that makes it strong and marks it as God’s own work and God’s own devising. Loss is not always tragedy and the missing places and pieces may also make up the beauty of a work put on display to the world.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

What is the purpose of Sabbath? It is a covenantal reminder that all we have flows from God and all we do is to be for God. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. It is not primarily a legal restriction but a relational opportunity. It is not for God’s sake, but for ours; for a single day it boundaries all labor apart from that which rests, refreshes and replenishes our lives. It hallows forever the necessity of periodic release from pressure, and reminds us recreation is in a real way a re-creation.

The consequence of working seven days without rest or respite results in death. Though the execution of legal national penalty is no longer in effect, the inescapable principle remains; when people and their livelihoods, industries and companies begin to prematurely die, much of this needless suffering and loss will trace back to attempted violations of what is unchangeable. Without a sacred break, you habituate acceleration to burn out.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Work is not a curse but a sacred calling. It was not given us as either a liability or limitation but as a holy right and responsibility. The curse that came to the first family for sinning was not that they would have to work but what work they did would now become ensnared in extra effort and a burden within a blessing. Whatever your work, there will be powers and principalities set to make all your needed effort troublesome and tiring.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” said Dorothy Sayers: Not bad things we should not have done, nor even good things we may have meant to do, but good things, nice things, fine things stubbornly and obstinately done despite God’s dealings with the lovely, treasured idolatries of our lives.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

"Why is it that so many equate godliness with grumpiness, a ransomed heart with a spiteful, critical and hurtful religious life-style? Does Heaven only hold a place for the scarred and sadly surrendered devotee who does not dance or sing in such a lovely home and family? Such a devotion first needs a royal deliverance if one wants to come back free to God’s city."

~Winkie Pratney
       Spiritual Vocations