letting go, day 3

Come to Stillness:

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

Opening Prayer:
Take, Lord, and receive all that I am and have. You’ve given it all to me; I give it all back to you. Do with me as you want. Just give me your love and your grace and that’s enough. ~St. Ignatius

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 130

Scripture for the Day: Mark 8:31-38

Reading for Reflection:

As long as I am plagued by doubts about my self-worth, I keep looking for gratification from people around me and yield quickly to any type of pain, mental or physical.  But when I can slowly detach myself from this need for human affirmation and discover that it is in relationship with Jesus that I find my true self, an unconditional surrender to him becomes not only possible but even the only desire, and pain inflicted by people will not touch me in the center.  When my self is anchored not in people but in God, I will have a much greater resistance against pain.  (The Genesee Diary by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Only prayer allows us to hear another voice, to respond to the larger possibilities, to find a way out of our need to order and control.  Then the questions that seem to shape our identity will not matter so much:  Who says good things about me?  Who doesn’t?  Who is my friend?  My enemy?  How many like me?  As we make God the center of our lives, our sense of who we are will depend less on what others think of or say about us.  We will cease being prisoners of the interpersonal.  (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: I Lift My Hands

I lift my hands to the coming King
To the great I Am, to you I sing
For you’re the One that reigns within my heart

I will serve no foreign gods,
nor any other treasure
For you are my heart’s desire,
your Spirit without measure
Unto you I will bring my sacrifice


Closing Prayer:
Lord God, be the delight of our hearts, even as we are the delight of yours. And help us to leave behind all thoughts, actions, and attitudes that do not reflect the beauty of that delight. May everything else pale in comparison with the passion we have to be truly yours. In the name of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)