story, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
Dear Jesus,
     Speak to me during this day about the story you are telling, the story I was made for.  Open my eyes, Lord, to the ways that story is being lived out in the events and circumstances of this day.  Show me how all that happens to me this day echoes Your larger Story if only I will keep my heart focused on you.  In your name I pray.  Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 107

Scripture for the Day: Luke 15:11-32

Reading for Reflection:

Of the six million species on the planet, only man makes language.  Words.  What's more--in evidence of the Divine--we string these symbols together and then write them down, where they take on a life of their own and breathe outside of us.  Story is the bandage of the broken.  Sutures of the shattered.  The tapestry upon which we write our lives.  Upon which we lay the bodies of the dying and the about-to-come-to-life.  And if it's honest, true, hiding nothing, revealing all, then it is a raging river and those who ride it find they have something to give--that they are not yet empty.
     Critics cry foul, claiming the tongue is a bloody butcher that blasphemes, slices, slanders, and damns--leaving scars, carnage, the broken the beaten.  Admittedly, story is a double-edged scimitar, but the fault lies not in the word but in the hand that wields the pen.  Not all stories spew, cower, and retreat.  Some storm the castle.  Rush in.  Stand between.  Wrap their arms around.  Spill secrets.  Share their shame.  Return.  Stories birth our dreams and feed the one thing that never dies. (Unwritten by Charles Martin)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Step By Step

O God, you are my God

And I will ever praise you

O God, you are my God

And I will ever praise you

I will seek you in the morning

And learn to walk in your ways

And step by step you’ll lead me

And I will follow you all of my days

And I will follow you all of my days,

Yes I will follow you all of my days

And step by step you’ll lead me

And I will follow you all of my days

 
Closing Prayer:
Father, write yourself upon my heart and life—that I may be an open book about you, so that others might read of your unending love on every page.  In the name of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.  Amen. (JLB)