time, day 1

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

Lord,

     Help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.  (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 90

Scripture for the Day: Ecclesiates 3:1-11

Reading for Reflection:

        The Greek word chronos means “time” in a quantitative sense, chronological time, time that you can divide into minutes and years, time as duration.  It is the sense that we mean when we say, “What time is it?” or “How much time do you have?” or “”Time is like an ever-flowing stream,” in one of the hymns we sing.  But in the Greek there is also the word kairos, which means “time” in the qualitative sense—not the kind that a clock measures but time that cannot be measured at all, time that is characterized by what happens in it.  Kairos time is the kind that you mean when you say that “the time is ripe” to do something, “It’s time to tell the truth,” a truth-telling kind of time.  Or “I had a good time”—the time had something about it that made me glad.  The ancient poet who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes was using time in a kairos sense when he wrote of a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to keep silence and a time to speak. (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Come, Now is the Time to Worship

Come, now is the time to worship

Come, now is the time to give your heart

Come, just as you are to worship

Come, just as you are before your God

Come

One day every tongue will confess you are God

One day every knee will bow

Still the greatest treasure remains for those

Who gladly choose you now

Closing Prayer:

     O Christ, when I look at you I see that you were never in a hurry, never ran, but always had time for the pressing necessities of the day.  Give me that disciplined, poised life with time always for the thing that matters.  For then I would be a disciplined person.  Amen.  (The Way by E. Stanley Jones)