made in his image, monday

Monday, September 8

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

Opening Prayer: Loving Creator, I have no quarrel with the way you have so carefully designed me in your image.  Truly I am your work of art.  Take me deeper today.  Show me my virtues—the wonders of your design for my life.  Help me not to be afraid to look into the depths of myself and believe in what I see—for I am the work of your hands.  If I can believe in what I see, then I can rejoice in what I see.  Precious in your sight, I am your work of art. Continue to create me in your image.  Amen. (Behold Your Life by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Romans 8:18-27

Reading for Reflection:

 

     I am not sure exactly what all I think we mean when we say that we are made in the image of God.  But part of it, I believe, is that the calling voice of God is sounding out in the caves and caverns deep beneath the soil of our souls.  And it is by obeying this call we learn who we truly are and what we can become.

     So if I do not seem to hear him speak from outside, and if there does not seem to be any message from the sky, then I must listen to the voice that is within me.  For that voice, too, is the purposeful, calling voice of God to us.

     Not many of us have enough confidence in ourselves to listen to that whispering voice that comes from within.  Most of the time, we do not even hear it.  But it doesn’t matter because we wouldn’t trust it.  We cannot believe that this inner voice is capable of leading us due north.

     We seek advice from friends and professionals, disc jockeys and Dear Abbys.  We put out a fleece.  We flip coins.  We take aptitude tests.  We do everything but believe that we could possibly have the answers deep within.

     The message of Paul in this place is that the calling indeed comes in the lives of the unlikely and the “foolish.”  You think you are unlikely; well you’re not.  You have difficulty believing that God could do great things in you; well, he wouldn’t.

     Now if God can take a tiny seed and, in the process of giving it his life, endow it with a knowledge of what it is supposed to be; if he can give it the purpose and strength and fruitfulness to not only accomplish it all, but to perpetuate itself as well; and if he can give it an inner calendar to tell it when all of this is supposed to be done, why is it so hard to believe he has done the same for our hearts?

     Since he has done this for tomatoes and thistles and beans and dandelions, it shouldn’t stretch our credibility so much to believe that his image in us, the image inherent in the life he gives to each of us, is calling us to be.

     The trick is to hear the voice, to believe it, and to trust it. (See You at the House by Bob Benson)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                      

Closing Prayer: Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (The Book of Common Worship)