joy and celebration, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
Our Father, giver of all gifts, You love and choose us, your least ones.  Increase our humility so that we might rejoice in the generosity of Your love and be mindful that the good in us comes from You, Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life, now and forever.  Amen.
                                                                ~Macrina Wiederkehr

 
Psalm for the Week: Psalm 66

Scripture for the Day: Nehemiah 8:1-10

Reading for Reflection:

     One aspect of choosing life is choosing joy.  Joy is life-giving, but sadness brings death.  A sad heart is a heart in which something is dying.  A joyful heart is a heart in which something new is being born.
     I think that joy is much more than a mood.  A mood invades us.  We do not choose a mood.  We often find ourselves in a happy or depressed mood without knowing where it comes from.  The spiritual life is a life beyond moods.  It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of joy or depression.
     I am convinced that we can choose joy.  Every moment we can decide to respond to an event or a person with joy instead of sadness.  When we truly believe that God is life and only life, then nothing need have the power to draw us into the sad realm of death.  To choose joy does not mean to choose happy feelings or an artificial atmosphere of hilarity.  But it does mean the determination to let whatever takes place bring us one step closer to the God of life. (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: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

 

 

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.  Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away; Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

 

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, earth and heaven reflect Thy rays, Stars and angels sing around Thee, center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea, Singing bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in Thee.

 

Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed, Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!  Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine; Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.

 

Mortals, join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began; Father love is reigning o’er us, brother love binds man to man. Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife, Joyful music leads us Sunward in the triumph song of life.

 
Closing Prayer:
O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold of eternal things.  Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good.  Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. (The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer)