calling, day 5

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Luke 5:27-32

Reading for Reflection:
 
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
(The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke)


Vocare, to call, of course, and a man’s vocation is a man’s calling.  It is the work that he is called to in this world, the thing that he is summoned to spend his life doing.  We can speak of a man’s choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation’s choosing the man, of a call’s being given and a man’s hearing it.  And maybe that is the place to start:  the business of listening and hearing.  A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directions.  Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside.  The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are.  Which do we listen to?  What kind of voice do we listen for?  (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)