home, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
Dear God, Help me to see my life here on earth is just the night before Christmas, and that when I awake in heaven, it will be Christmas morning.  The once-empty stockings now bulging.  The once-hidden presents now under the tree, waiting to be unwrapped.  The holiday meal once waiting to be cooked now on the table, waiting to be eaten.  Here, the dream of sugar plums.  There the awakening to wide-eyed wonder of all You have prepared for us…Amen. (Reflections on the Word by Ken Gire)  

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 126

Scripture for the Day: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Reading for Reflection:

For now, our life is a journey of high stakes and frequent danger.  But we have turned the corner; the long years of exile are winding down as we are approaching home.  There is no longer any question as to whether we will make it and if it will be good when we get there.  “I am going to prepare a place for you,” Jesus promised.  “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me” (John 14:2-3).

     One day soon we will round a bend in the road and our dreams will come true.  We really will live happily ever after.  The long years of exile will be swept away in the joyful tears of our arrival home.  Every day when we rise, we can tell ourselves, My journey today will bring me closer to home; it may be just around the bend.  All we long for we shall have; all we long to be, we will be.  All that has hurt us so deeply—the dragons and nits, the Arrows and false lovers, and Satan himself—they will all be swept away.

     Then real life begins.  (The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Jesus Let Us Come to Know You

 

Jesus let us come to know You,

Let us see you face to face

Touch us, hold us, use us, mold us;

only let us live in you

 

Jesus draw us ever nearer,

hold us in your loving arms

Wrap us in your gentle presence;

when the end comes, bring us home.  

 

 

Closing Prayer: 
Dear Lord Jesus,

     Thank you that here and there you have shown me glimpses of heaven, however briefly.  Now and then you have sent me echoes of it, however faintly.  And that once in a while you have allowed it to touch me, however gently.  Those glimpses, those echoes, those touches have awakened my longing for home, and for each one of those awakenings, I thank you.

     Thank you that I have a room in your Father’s house.  A place just for me.  Thank you for all you have done to ready it for my arrival.  For all the longings that lead me there and for all the reminders that let me know that this is not my home, I thank you, O Lord.  Remind me often, for so often I forget, that the very best of homes here on earth is just a shadow of the home waiting for me in heaven. (Moments with the Savior by Ken Gire)