following and being led, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus,

      I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, popularity, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to those voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life. I know this will be a very hard road for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are no times and places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you. Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and courage to live my life faithfully, so that I will be able to taste with joy the new life which you have prepared for me. Amen. (The Road to Daybreak by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 77

Scripture for the Day: Luke 9:57-62 

Reading for Reflection:

     I am growing in the awareness that God wants my whole life, not just part of it.  It is not enough to give just so much time and attention to God and keep the rest for myself.  It is not enough to pray often and deeply and then move from there to my own projects.

     As I try to understand why I am still so restless, anxious, and tense, it occurs to me that I have not yet given everything to God.  I especially see this in my greediness for time.  I am very concerned to have enough hours to develop my ideas, finish my projects, fulfill my desires.  Thus, my life is in fact divided into two parts, a part for God and a part for myself.  Thus divided, my life cannot be peaceful.

     To return to God means to return to God with all that I am and all that I have.  I cannot return to God with just half of my being.  As I reflected this morning again on the story of the prodigal son and tried to experience myself in the embrace of the father, I suddenly felt a certain resistance to being embraced so fully and totally.  I experienced not only a desire to be embraced, but also a fear of losing my independence.  I realized that God’s love is a jealous love.  God wants not just a part of me, but all of me.  Only when I surrender myself completely to God’s parental love can I expect to be free from endless distractions, ready to hear the Voice of Love, and able to recognize my own unique call.

     It’s going to be a very long road.  Every time I pray I feel the struggle.  It is the struggle of letting God be the God of my whole being.  It is the struggle to trust that true freedom lies hidden in total surrender to God’s love.  (The Road to Daybreak by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: He Leadth Me

He leadeth me, O blessed thought!
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.

Refrain:
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful foll’wer I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.

Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.

Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.

And when my task on earth is done,
When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.

Closing Prayer:
Drive far from us all wrong desires and incline our hearts to keep Your ways: Grant that having cheerfully done Your will this day, we may, when night comes rejoice and give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Worship)