Opening Prayer:
I am sure that there is in me nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as You are. Yet You have declared Your unchanging love for me in Christ Jesus. If nothing in me can win your love, nothing in the universe can prevent You from loving me. Your love is uncaused and undeserved. You are Yourself the reason for the love wherewith I am loved. (Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)
Psalm for the Week: Psalm 32
Scripture for the Day: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Reading for Reflection:
The wildness of God giving us freedom is even more staggering when we remember that he has already paid dearly for giving freedom to the angels. But because of his grand heart he goes ahead and takes the risk, an enormous, colossal risk. The reason he didn’t make puppets is because he wanted lovers. Remember, he’s inviting us into a romance. Freedom is part of the explanation for the problem of evil. God is the author of some storms directly; but he is the author of the possibility of all storms in giving us freedom. And we opened Pandora’s box.
Can you imagine if on your honeymoon one of you sneaked off for a rendezvous with a perfect stranger? Adam and Eve kicked off the honeymoon by sleeping with the enemy. Then comes one of the most poignant verses in all of Scripture. “What have you done?” (Genesis 3:13). You can almost hear the shock, the pain of betrayal in God’s voice. The fall of Adam and Eve mustn’t be pictured as a crime like theft, but as a betrayal of love. In love God creates us for love and we give him the back of our hand. Why? Satan bets us to side with him by sowing the seed of doubt in our first parents’ minds: “God’s heart really isn’t good. He’s holding out on you. You’ve got to take things into your own hands.” And paradise was lost.
Yet there was something about the heart of God that the angels and our first parents had not seen yet. Here, at the lowest point in our relationship, God announces his intention never to abandon us but to seek us out and win us back. “I will come for you.” Grace introduces a new element of God’s heart. Up till this point we knew he was rich, famous, influential, even generous. Behind all that can still hide a heart that is less than good. Grace removes all doubt. (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: Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind, but now I see
T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear
And Grace my fears relieved
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
And Grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.
Closing Prayer:
Father, I love You Whom I do not know, and I embrace You Whom I do not see, and I abandon myself to You Whom I have offended, because You love in me Your only begotten Son. You see Him in me, You embrace Him in me, because He has willed to identify Himself completely with me by that love which brought Him to death, for me, on the Cross. (Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton)
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