suffering, friday

Friday, October 31

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

         

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Hebrews 4:14-16

Reading for Reflection:

 

     In praying about my wounds I have come to believe that the reason these wounds take so long to heal is that I spend more time attacking them than trying to understand them.  I keep trying to clog up the hole made by the wound.  The reality is that I keep stuffing my wound with other addictions, always hoping for some miraculous cure.  The healing needs to happen right there in that broken place because it is there that I am vulnerable.  It is there in that crack in my spirit that the light of Christ can slip through and help me understand the wound.  When Jesus rose, his wounds were still visible.  The scars could be seen right in the midst of the glory.  Is my life, patterned after Christ, to be any different?

     The scars in my life have become my badges of victory and glory.  Some healing has taken place, yet as I pray with these scars I am able to see that I will probably have to live with some of the pain I’ve inherited from my cluttered life.  I am learning to befriend my scars and find the gifts hidden underneath. (Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Father, heal my wounds and make them a source of life for others; as you did with your Son Jesus.  In whose name we pray. Amen.

suffering, thursday

Thursday, October 30

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

         

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 121:1-8

Reading for Reflection:

 

Many of us are tempted to think that if we suffer, the only important thing is to be relieved of our pain.  We want to flee it at all costs.  But when we learn to move through suffering, rather than avoid it, then we greet it differently.  We become willing to let it teach us.  We even begin to see how God can use it for some larger end.  Suffering becomes something other than a nuisance or curse to be evaded at all costs, but a way into deeper fulfillment.  Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer: O God, we know that all things are ordered by your wisdom and love; grant us in all things to see your hand; that we may walk with Christ in all simplicity, and serve you with a quiet and contented mind.  Amen. (Venite by Robert benson)

suffering, wednesday

Wednesday, October 29

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

          

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 66:8-12  

Reading for Reflection:

 

     You let it happen—this riding over our heads—whoever or whatever it may have been.  You didn’t cause it, but you could have stopped it.  I mean, I know it doesn’t happen every day, but I have seen you spring into action and miraculously come to someone’s aid or defense; come to protect or deliver.  And yet, for some reason, in this case you didn’t.  You allowed it.  Does that mean you sat idly by and watched?  Or does it mean that—although the brokenness of this world was its cause—that you were big enough to bring beauty out of the tragedy?  You saw it coming, and let it stand, because of what you knew it would do within us.  You knew that the groaning it would produce would have an effect on us like nothing else could or would. 

     So where exactly were you when we were going through the fire; being consumed by the agonizing flames of grief or sadness or mourning or pain?  What were you doing while the mighty waters rushed over us and swept us away; as we struggled and fought to survive—to keep our heads above water?  Were you with us in some mysteriously hidden way that we were not able to completely comprehend at the time?  Were you in the midst of the fire with us; shielding us from the fury of the flames?  Were you in the middle of the raging currents beside us, holding and sustaining us, keeping us afloat?  After all, you know what the groaning is like.  In fact, you know it like no other.  Did it break your heart to have to watch the riding over us unfold—to know the depths of the pain we were going through—and not intervene?  How hard that must have been for you.

     When we are in the midst of the groan it is hellish.  It is hard to believe, or even consent to the fact, that something good might possibly result from the chaos and brokenness.  Much less to think that it could be some strange path to a place called abundance.  That is almost unimaginable.  Yet all of us, on the backside of the riding over, usually have to admit that something took place within us, or among us, which could have happened no other way.  We would never have chosen the path in a million years—not then, and most likely not again—but we can’t deny the beauty of the new place at which we eventually arrived.  How in the world did we get here?  Who would’ve imagined that the groans and cries and tears and struggle would have brought us to this place?  This place where our hearts have been both broken and expanded, where our souls have been both crushed and deepened beyond measure.  Who could’ve dreamt that the effect of the fire and of the water would have been to make us more like Jesus?

     The groaning of this world seems endless.  And it seems to come from every direction.  And it is so hard to watch the groaners groan and the mourners mourn and the strugglers struggle and not be able to do anything about it.  It is so tempting to try to come to the rescue, but rescue is not really possible, or even preferable, because something much deeper is going on.  In the words of Gerald May, “There is no way out, only through.”  Something deep and wonderful happens in the going through.  So we must resist the urge to provide an escape—if that were even possible—because the struggle, or the groaning, or the grief, or the pain is the very thing that is able to do a beautiful work within.  All there is for us to do is trust.  Trust that God really is in control.  Trust that God really is up to something, in spite of all appearances.  Trust that God really is big enough to sustain, to comfort, to deliver, to heal, and ultimately to transform.  Trust that through the fire and through the water lies a place of abundance.

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer: To you.  I’m used to poking around the rubble of my crumbled dreams, but now I see that you’re the one smashing them to pieces.  You’re holding the sledgehammer in one hand and an invitation to the palace in the other. (A Heart Exposed by Steven James)

suffering, tuesday

Tuesday, October 28

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

         

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 109:21-26

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divining, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys.  For they are moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and a new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.

     I believe that almost all our sadnesses are the moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living.  Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.  For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more,—is already in our blood.  And we do not learn what it was.  We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered.  We cannot say who has come, perhaps we shall never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters into us in this way in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.  And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that other noisy fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside.  The more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours, so much the more will it be our destiny, and when on some later day it “happens” (that is, steps forth out of us to others), we shall feel in our inmost selves akin and near to it. (Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer: God of Fire and Grace, you offer love that knows no bounds, forgiveness that pardons the lost.  Pour your presence into me, fill me with passion, then consume me with your Spirit’s hungry flame.  Take me wherever you want, change me as you wish, mold me into the shape of your dreams.  Break through the comforting illusions of my life and bring me something terribly, wrigglingly, writhingly real. (A Heart Exposed by Steven James)

suffering, monday

Monday, October 27

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

          

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: 1 Peter 4:12-19

Reading for Reflection:

 

But there can finally be no outlet, no anesthesia, no self-inflicted way of ending the pain.  The beams of love must be borne.  No human love affair can substitute for the divine one; no drug or food will really fill the emptiness; no overwork or preoccupation can finally overshadow the yearning; no ascetical extremes can stop the pain.  There is no way out—only through.  As the poetry of the John of the Cross so vividly attests, the wound of love must remain open until God heals it.  It is God’s way of drawing every hidden “no,” “maybe,” or “yes but,” into one completely joyous, unreserved “Yes!”  It is love’s way of becoming everything. (The Awakened Heart by Gerald G. May)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Behold me, my beloved Jesus, weighed down under the burden of trials and sufferings.  I cast myself at your feet that you may renew my strength and my courage while I rest here in your presence.  For your glory.  Amen.

suffering, sunday

Sunday, October 26

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

          

Opening Prayer: Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Hebrews 2:10-18

Reading for Reflection:

 

     The heart is stretched through suffering, and enlarged.  But O the agony of this enlarging of the heart, that one may be prepared to enter into the anguish of others!  Yet the way of holy obedience leads out from the heart of God and extends through the Valley of the Shadow.

     But there is also removable suffering, yet such as yields only to years of toil and fatigue and unconquerable faith and perchance only to death itself.  The Cross as dogma is painless speculation; the Cross as lived suffering is anguish and glory.  Yet God, out of the pattern of His own heart, has planted the Cross along the road of holy obedience.  And he enacts in the hearts of those He loves the miracle of willingness to welcome suffering and to know it for what it is-the final seal of His gracious love.  I dare not urge you to your Cross.  But He, more powerfully, speaks within you and me, to our truest selves, in our truest moments, and disquiets us with the world’s needs.  By inner persuasions He draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing His burdens in us.  And He gives us the royal blindness of faith, and the seeing eye of the sensitized soul, and the grace of unflinching obedience.  Then we see that nothing matters, and that everything matters, and that this my task matters for me and for my fellow men and for Eternity.  And if we be utterly humble we may be given strength to be obedient even unto death, yea the death of the Cross.

     In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again.  The times are too tragic, God’s sorrow is too great, man’s night too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience.  (A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

     Thank you for the hard and sometimes uphill road I have had to walk in following you.  I am stronger because of it.  And we are closer because of it.  For all good things that have come to me along the way, I thank you.

     But I have to say, I wish it were an easier way, a shorter way, a more scenic way.  I wish the road didn’t have to go past the garden of Gethsemane, with its darkness and loneliness and tears.  I wish it just went in endless circles around the seashores of Galilee, and that walking with you were more of a serene stroll in the sunset.

     Help me to understand that Gethsemane is as necessary as Galilee in the geography of a growing soul.  Help me to remember that even though you were a son, yet you learned obedience through the things you suffered. 

     Paul talks about entering into fellowship of your suffering.  I do so very much look forward to having fellowship with you, but honestly, Lord, the thought of having too suffer to experience it stops me in my tracks.

     Help me, Lord Jesus, to want your company more than I want serenity, and to love fellowship with you more than I fear the suffering necessary to enter into it.

(Reflections on the Word by Ken Gire)

trust, saturday

Saturday, October 25

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

         

Opening Prayer:     O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                              ~St. Ignatius

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

Reading for Reflection:

 

Even in the midst of your suffering you are in his kingdom.  You are always his children, and he has his protecting arm around you…Don’t ask why; don’t try to understand.  Does a child understand everything his father does?  Can he comprehend parental wisdom?  No—but he can confidently nestle in his father’s arms and feel perfect happiness, even while the tears glisten in his eyes, because he is his father’s child (Reverence for Life by Albert Schweitzer)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                   
Closing Prayer: Lord, when I am tempted to look at circumstances, and allow them to determine how I live my days, turn my heart and my mind toward you and allow me to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you feed the birds of the air and clothe the lilies of the field, you will most certainly care for me, your beloved.  Amen.

trust, friday

Friday, October 24

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

         

Opening Prayer:     O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: Philippians 4:4-9

Reading for Reflection:

 

And remember, there are two things which are more utterly incompatible than even oil and water, and these two are trust and worry…When a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about that thing which he has trusted.  And when he worries, it is plain proof that he does not trust. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, help us to not be consumed with the worries and anxieties of this life, but to give all of our cares to you in prayer.  Fix our hearts and our minds on your character and your excellence; that your peace may guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.  It is in his name that we lift up our prayers.  Amen.    

trust, thursday

Thursday, October 23

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

         

Opening Prayer: O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                 ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 125:1-5

Reading for Reflection:

 

God’s power, Presence, and love, then, come together to establish a solid foundation on which to build trust.  Translated into practice, to trust means to be convinced that God is fully aware of our circumstances, is present in the midst of them, and is acting in wisdom, power, and love to accomplish what is best for us. (Rhythms of the Inner Life by Howard R. Macy)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                   

Closing Prayer: O Thou who alone knowest what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to Thee.  Let me be in the world, yet not of it.  Let me today embark on no undertaking that is not in line with Thy will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which Thy will may demand.  Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind: for my Lord Christ’s sake.  Amen. (A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)

trust, wednesday

Wednesday, October 22

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

         

Opening Prayer:     O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 62:1-12

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Only in God, and God alone, can our fearful and insecure hearts find rest.  All else (everything but Him) is simply shifting sand and shaky ground—temporal, transient, fragile.  He alone is our rock, our refuge, and our fortress.  Don’t we all long to live our lives rooted in Him, built upon the solid foundation of him, where we will never again have to worry about being shaken?

     But the unfortunate truth is that this very day—maybe even this very minute—we will be shaken, probably often.  We will be assaulted and thrown down; maybe not in body, but most certainly in heart and in spirit.  This very day we will be like a leaning wall or a tottering fence; frail, fragile, on the verge of collapse.  This very day we will listen to the lies and start to believe them.  This very day we will attach (the Hebrew word for trust means to attach) ourselves to something other than God alone.  We will trust in something, or someone, other than him to be the thing that will bring us a true sense of joy and peace and fulfillment.  We will attach ourselves to a conversation or an affirmation, a conflict or a negative comment, or an achievement or interaction, and become so very vulnerable to life and its circumstances—so easily knocked off balance, or blown by the wind, or uprooted from finding our center in him alone. 

     And once again we will—actually He will—have to remind ourselves of the truth. Our soul finds rest in God alone; our hope comes from Him. He alone is our rock and our salvation; He is our fortress, we will not be shaken. We will have to listen carefully to His voice and be truly convinced of the truth of His words: Our salvation and our honor depend on God; He is our mighty rock, our refuge. And, as we listen once again to His voice and His Word, something will begin to grow within us—trust. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart to Him, for God is our refuge. And, with this, we will be able, by His grace and power, to cut the cords of all the things we have attached ourselves to other than Him and attach ourselves once again to him, our strong and loving Creator. Thanks be to God!

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: In Thy will, O Lord, is my peace.  In Thy love is my rest.  In Thy service is my joy.  Thou art all my heart’s desire.  Amen. (A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)

trust, tuesday

Tuesday. October 21

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

          

Opening Prayer: O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                      ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 37:3-8

Reading for Reflection:

 

Your willingness to let go of your desire to control your life reveals a certain trust.  The more you relinquish your stubborn need to maintain power, the more you will get in touch with the One who has the power to heal and guide you.  And the more you get in touch with that divine power, the easier it will be to confess to yourself and to others your basic powerlessness. (The Inner Voice of Love by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Dear God, you never said it was going to be easy, you simply call us to trust in you.  Give us the faith necessary to do just that.  Grant us the strength and the courage to choose to trust you, rather than to fret; to choose to delight in you rather than to be consumed by our own fears, anxieties, and agendas.   Teach us what it means to truly delight ourselves in you; for that is the deepest desire of our hearts.  Help us to live our lives in constant gratitude, appreciating every minute, both the moments of joy, as well as the moments of trial.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

trust, monday

Monday, October 20

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

         

Opening Prayer:     O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                      ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: Proverbs 3:5-6

Reading for Reflection:

 

Take your stand on the power and trustworthiness of your God, and see how quickly all difficulties will vanish before a steadfast determination to believe.  Trust in the dark, trust in the light, trust at night and trust in the morning, and you will find that the faith which may begin by mighty effort, will end sooner or later by becoming the easy and natural habit of the soul. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith)

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 that 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.

                                                                                    ~Thomas Merton

trust, sunday

Sunday, October 19

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

          

Opening Prayer:     O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength.  Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things.

                                                                                      ~St. Ignatius

Scripture Reading for the Day: John 14:1-4

Reading for Reflection:

 

The story was of a poor woman who had been carried triumphantly through a life of unusual sorrow.  She was giving the history of her life to a kind visitor on one occasion, and at the close the visitor said, feelingly, “O Hannah, I do not see how you could bear so much sorrow!” “I did not bear it,” was the quick reply; “the Lord bore it for me.” “Yes,” said the visitor “that is the right way.  You must take your troubles to the Lord.” “Yes,” replied Hannah, “but we must do more than that; we must leave them there.  Most people,” she continued, “take their burdens to Him, but they bring them away with them again, and are just as worried and unhappy as ever.  But I take mine, and I leave them with Him, and come away and forget them.  And if the worry comes back, I take it to Him again; I do this over and over, until at last I just forget that I have any worries, and am at perfect rest.” (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: O God, who hast been the Refuge of my fathers through many generations, be my Refuge today in every time and circumstance of need.  Be my Guide through all that is dark and doubtful.  Be my Strength in time of testing.  Gladden my heart with Thy peace, through Jesus Christ my Lord.  Amen. (A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)

fear, saturday

Saturday, October 18

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

          

Opening Prayer: O Lord our God, help us to live our lives with the faith and courage necessary to live by love and not by fear.  Forgive me when my seeing and my thinking get so distorted that I allow fear to control me and make me its slave—even when I don’t fully realize it.  Seize my heart and soul with your perfect love in such a way that it drives out all fear and gives me the freedom to truly love, rather than manipulate, those in my life and world.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

         

Scripture Reading for the Day: Romans 8:12-17

Reading for Reflection:

     “There is nothing like it on earth,” said the old preacher, “when the spirit of God comes pouring through, and he has poured through me in fair weather and foul, for sixty-four years.”

     “Have there been dry spells?” asked the rector.

     The preacher pushed his plate away and Lottie rose to clear the table.  Father Tim smelled the kind of coffee he remembered from Mississippi—strong and black and brewed on the stove.

     “My brother, dry is not the word.  There was a time I went down like a stone in a pond and sank clear to the bottom.  I lay on the bottom of that pond for two miserable years, and thought I’d never see the light of day in my soul again.”

     “I can’t say my current tribulation is anything like that.  But in an odd way, it’s something almost worse.”

     “What’s that?”

     “When it comes to feeding his sheep, I’m afraid my sermons are about as nourishing as cardboard.”

     “Are you resting?”

     “Resting?”

     “Resting.  Sometimes we get so worn out with being useful that we get useless.  I’ll ask you what another preacher once asked: Are you too exhausted to run and too scared to rest?”

     Too scared to rest!  He’d never thought of it that way.  “When in God’s name are you going to take a vacation?” Hoppy had asked again, only the other day.  He hadn’t known the truth then, but he felt he knew it now—yes, he was too scared to rest.

     The old preacher’s eyes were as clear as gemstones.  “My brother, I would urge you to search the heart of God on this matter, for it was this very thing that sank me to the bottom of the pond.”

     They looked at one another with grave understanding.  “I’ll covet your prayers,” said Father Tim. (At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Almighty God, you know the difficulties we face each day.  Remind us that you are very near to us, that indeed you are a shield around us.  We do not fear our adversaries because salvation comes from you.  Amen. (A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God by Rueben Job, Norman Shawchuck, and John Mogabgab)