broken, monday

Monday, March 31

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

Opening Prayer: O persistent God, deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.  Pressure me that I may grow more human, not through the lessening of my struggles, but through the expansion of them…Deepen my hurt until I learn to share it and myself openly, and my needs honestly.  Sharpen my fears until I name them and release the power I have locked in them and they in me.  Accentuate my confusion until I shed those grandiose expectations that divert me from the small, glad gifts of the now and the here and the me.  Expose my shame where it shivers, crouched behind the curtains of propriety, until I can laugh at last through my common frailties and failures, laugh my way toward becoming whole. (Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)

Daily Scripture Reading: Genesis 32:22-32

Reading for Reflection:

“Heel grabber” is what Jacob’s name means, a name you would expect of a wrestler.  Jacob’s entire life up till now was spent calculating his next move and maneuvering to a position of advantage so he could pry from God’s hands so many of the blessings that God in time had wanted to give him anyway.

     Now it was God’s turn to grab Jacob’s heel, to wrestle with this fundamental flaw in his nature, and touch him in a way so he would never forget the encounter.  Through the ordeal, Jacob learned that God’s blessing comes not from grabbing but from clinging.

     There is something of Jacob in all of us, I think.  If so, there must be a night of reckoning for us as well.  A night when God finds us alone, grabs us, throws us to the ground, and wrestles with that fundamental flaw in our character.  In that dark night of the soul, though He cripples us in the dawn He blesses us. 

     For some of us, the crippling is the blessing. (Reflections on the Word by Ken Gire)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                      
Closing Prayer: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.  (Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton)