joy and celebration, day 3

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: Philippians 4:4-9

Reading for Reflection:

The difference between shallow happiness and deep, sustaining joy is sorrow.  Happiness lives where sorrow is not.  When sorrow arrives, happiness dies.  It can't stand pain.  Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief.  Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance, and of endurance into character, and of character into hope—and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend upon it) disappoint us.
     In the sorrows of the Christ—as we ourselves experience them—we prepare for Easter, for joy.  There can be no resurrection from the dead except first there is death!  But then, because we love him above all things, his rising is our joy.  And then the certain hope of our own resurrection warrants the joy both now and forever. (Reliving the Passion by Walter Wangerin Jr.)

 

 

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)