balance, day 2

Come to Stillness:

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

Opening Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

     During this day help me quiet all the thoughts that fill my head—where I must go, whom I must see, and what I must do. In their place, give me a sense of your order, your peace, and your time.

     Help me to understand that you are in control, and I can trust you with my day. Help me to realize that nothing on my to-do list is important if it is not what you want me to do.

      I give all my tasks to you and trust you to bring order to them. In these moments, dear Jesus, come to me, be with me, and free me from the tyranny of “to do.” (Quiet Spaces by Patricia F. Wilson)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 127

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 11:28-30

Reading for Reflection:

Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of a one whole.  If our practical life is centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted by ambitions, passions, wants and worries, beset by a sense of our own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual life will be a contrast to all this.  The soul’s house is not built on such a convenient plan: there are few soundproof partitions in it.  Only when the conviction—not merely the idea—that the demand of the Spirit, however inconvenient, comes first and IS first, rules the whole of it, will those objectionable noises die down which have a way of penetrating into the nicely furnished oratory, and drowning all the quieter voices by their din. (The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Be the Center

Jesus, be the center,
Be my source, be my light, Jesus
Jesus, be the center,
Be my hope, be my song, Jesus

Be the fire in my heart, be the wind in these sails
Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus

Jesus, be my vision,
Be my path, be my guide, Jesus.

Be the fire in my heart, be the wind in these sails

Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus

Closing Prayer
You have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence we shall be strengthened. By Your Spirit lift us to Your Presence where we may be still and know that You are God. (from The Book of Common Prayer adapted in Living Prayer by Robert Benson)