between, day 7

Come to Stillness:

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

Opening Prayer:

O Lord, our God, so much of this life is lived in between; between the now and the not yet, between arriving and departing, between birth and death and rebirth, between growing up and growing old, between questions and answers. Help us not to live only for some distant day when the in between will be no more, but help us to step into the mystery of that sacred space here and now—knowing that it will be a place of genuine change and true transformation. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 46

Scripture for the Day: Jeremiah 6:16

Reading for Reflection:

Waiting as we see it in people on the first pages of the Gospel, is waiting with a sense of promise.  “Zechariah, your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son.”  “Mary, Listen!  You are to conceive and bear a son” (Luke 1:13, 31).  People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait.  They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow.  This is very important.  We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us.  So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something.  It is always a movement from something to something more.  Zechariah, Mary, and Elizabeth were living with a promise that nurtured them, that fed them, and that made them able to stay where they were.  And in this way, the promise itself could grow in them and for them. (A Spirituality of Waiting by Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Weavings Reader

This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.  We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not finished but it is going on.  This is not the end but it is the road; all does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.
                                                                                   ~Martin Luther


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Cleft of the Mountain

I will run to the cleft of the mountain and wait for You
Will you come and meet with me?
I will wait in the cleft of the mountain for You to pass by
Will you come and meet with me?

Oh, what a joy it would be
Just for a moment to lay at the feet of the Lord
Oh more than anything that’s what I long for
Oh, what a change it would bring
Just to look deep in the face of the King Who gave all
You gave everything so You could meet with me
Will You meet with me?

Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Help me to trust you fully in the midst of this life that seems so chaotic and unsure at times. Give me, this day, a firm place to set my feet as I walk toward you through this ever-changing world. Amen. (JLB)