balance, thursday

Thursday, August 28

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

Opening Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

     During this day help me quiet all the thoughts that fill my head—where I must go, whom I must see, and what I must do.  In their place, give me a sense of your order, your peace, and your time.

     Help me to understand that you are in control, and I can trust you with my day.  Help me to realize that nothing on my to-do list is important if it is not what you want me to do.

     I give all my tasks to you and trust you to bring order to them.  In these moments, dear Jesus, come to me, be with me, and free me from the tyranny of “to do.” (Quiet Spaces by Patricia F. Wilson)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Matthew 6:25-34

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of a one whole.  If our practical life is centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted by ambitions, passions, wants and worries, beset by a sense of our own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual life will be a contrast to all this.  The soul’s house is not built on such a convenient plan: there are few soundproof partitions in it.  Only when the conviction—not merely the idea—that the demand of the Spirit, however inconvenient, comes first and IS first, rules the whole of it, will those objectionable noises die down which have a way of penetrating into the nicely furnished oratory, and drowning all the quieter voices by their din. (The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          
Closing Prayer: Lord, I am yours; I do yield myself up entirely to you, and I believe that you do take me.  I leave myself with you.  Work in me all the good pleasure of your will, and I will only lie still in your hands and trust you.  Amen. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith)