Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to
be still before God.
Opening Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want
to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about
prestige, success, popularity, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to those voices and
more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to
life. I know this will be a very hard
road for me. The choice for your way has
to be made every moment of my life. I
have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and
actions that are your actions. There are
no times and places without choices. And
I know how deeply I resist choosing you.
Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and courage to live my
life faithfully, so that I will be able to taste with joy the new life which
you have prepared for me. Amen. (The
Road to Daybreak by Henri J.M. Nouwen)
Scripture Reading for the Day: Luke 9:57-62
Reading for Reflection:
I am growing in the
awareness that God wants my whole life, not just part of it. It is not enough to give just so much time
and attention to God and keep the rest for myself. It is not enough to pray often and deeply and
then move from there to my own projects.
As I try to understand why I am still so
restless, anxious, and tense, it occurs to me that I have not yet given
everything to God. I especially see this
in my greediness for time. I am very
concerned to have enough hours to develop my ideas, finish my projects, fulfill
my desires. Thus, my life is in fact
divided into two parts, a part for God and a part for myself. Thus divided, my life cannot be peaceful.
To return to God means to return to God with
all that I am and all that I have. I
cannot return to God with just half of my being. As I reflected this morning again on the
story of the prodigal son and tried to experience myself in the embrace of the
father, I suddenly felt a certain resistance to being embraced so fully and
totally. I experienced not only a desire
to be embraced, but also a fear of losing my independence. I realized that God’s love is a jealous love. God wants not just a part of me, but all
of me. Only when I surrender myself
completely to God’s parental love can I expect to be free from endless
distractions, ready to hear the Voice of Love, and able to recognize my own
unique call.
It’s going to be a very long road. Every time I pray I feel the struggle. It is the struggle of letting God be the God
of my whole being. It is the struggle to
trust that true freedom lies hidden in total surrender to God’s love. (The Road to Daybreak by Henri
J. M. Nouwen)
Reflection and Listening: silent and written
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Closing Prayer: Drive far from us all wrong desires and incline our hearts to keep Your ways: Grant that having cheerfully done Your will this day, we may, when night comes rejoice and give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Worship)
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