balance, sunday

Sunday, August 24

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: Psalm 127:1-2

Reading for Reflection:

 

     When most of us think of the word balance, we think of a life with equal amounts (or right amounts) of everything—a life in which our work and play and family and friendships and faith all receive comparable amounts of attention and energy.  In the spiritual life, however, the word balance must be defined differently.  As a matter of fact the word balance might not be the most appropriate word to use at all—the word centered might be more accurate.  Because in the life of faith, balance means having Christ as the center around which everything else revolves.  Thus, life is only balanced when everything is centered on Christ.  Christ is the hub of the wheel; the focal point of our lives that allows life to function the way it was created to function.  So the question becomes not “Do I have enough of God in my life?” but “Is Christ the center of my life?  What does my life revolve around?”  The answer to these questions will tell me a lot about whether my life is truly balanced or not.

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          

Closing Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I spend all of my time and all of my energy building my “house” instead of yours.  Help me to realize that when I do this I toil in vain.  Help my life and my work and all of my efforts to always be centered in you.  For the sake of your Son Jesus.  Amen.

time, saturday

Saturday, August 23

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 103:13-19

Reading for Reflection:

 

     When I imagine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture my room and desk tidy, everything in its place.  I myself am moving gracefully and graciously from one task to the next with precision, on schedule but with no strain or pressure.  The schedule and the tasks are perfectly synchronized.  It could all be so simple, I say to myself, if everything were only in its place.

     But it isn’t.  It’s complicated.  It’s complicated because people don’t stay in place.  They aren’t predictable, they foul up my schedule, they interfere with my agenda, they make demands I hadn’t programmed.  It’s complicated because there is too much to do, too many tasks, too many needs, too much going on.  I can’t keep up with it all; I’m always at least a step or two behind.  I can’t do everything that needs to be done; I feel burdened, sometimes even guilty, for being so limited.  And I think maybe I’m doing it wrong, and if I could just figure out how to do it right I’d be able to meet everyone’s needs.  It’s complicated because there’s never enough time.  In my anxiety to conquer time by controlling its dispensation, I feel myself victimized by it.  I am unable to find time, take time, get time: all control words.

     Mostly what I find is frustration.  My life is out of control.  I feel a need to be in control of my life and all the factors, situations, and people that complicate it.  I set myself over-against them and need to dominate them, to subject them to my agenda, fit them into my program.  I do have an agenda, and I don’t want it interrupted.  I set up my day and I offer it to God.

     But there’s something wrong in the picture.  When I imagine—or when I experience—the simple way, everything moves in a rhythm.  There is an Agenda, and I’m in tune with it, but it’s not my creation.  I don’t need to worry about controlling; I don’t need to be anxious that it won’t all work out.  I’m not in command and don’t need to be….  The interruptions are as integral to the scene as anything I had planned.  I only receive the day and the program that comes to me during the day from God.  And that’s what makes the difference. (Reflections on Simplicity by Elaine M. Prevallet)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          

Closing Prayer: Lord God, help me to invest my time in the things that are eternal, not in the things that are temporary, transient, and fleeting.  For your glory.  Amen.

 

time, friday

Friday, August 22

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Hebrews 3:7-15

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Not long after moving to Chicago, I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction.  I described the pace at which things tend to move in my current setting.  I told him about the rhythms of our family life and about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it.  What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy?

     Long pause.

     “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last.  Another long pause.

     “Okay, I’ve written that one down,” I told him, a little impatiently.  “That’s a good one.  Now what else is there?”  I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance conversation, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible.

     Another long pause.

     “There is nothing else,” he said.

     He was the wisest spiritual mentor I have known.  And while he doesn’t know every detail about every grain of sin in my life, he knows quite a bit.  And from an immense quiver of spiritual sagacity, he drew only one arrow.  “There is nothing else,” he said, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

     Imagine for a moment that someone gave you this prescription, with the warning that your life depends on it.  Consider the possibility that perhaps your life does depend on it.  Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.  Hurry can destroy our souls.  Hurry can keep us from living well.  As Carl Jung wrote, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”

     Again and again, as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry.  For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith.  It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.  We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. (The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          

Closing Prayer: Lord, let me hear your voice…today.

getting to know you

Hello there.  I am constantly amazed, and a little overwhelmed, at how God seems to be using this blog all over the world.  I can see where the page views are coming from, but I can never be sure of who you are or what God is up to in you.  I would love to actually hear from you.  I'd love to hear who you are, and what you do, and how this blog might be helpful to you as live out God's calling on your life in whatever place he has you.  So hit that Comment button and let me know what God is up to in your life and world.

Blessings,
Jim

time, thursday

Thursday, August 21

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: John 2:1-12

Reading for Reflection:

 

“My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).  Jesus lived with a keen sense of the opportune time.  He recognized the deep rhythms of God’s purpose flowing through his days, and sensed when they would coalesce into the weighty hour.  There would be the hour of the final table fellowship (Luke 22:14), abandonment (John 16:32), glorification (John 17:1), departure (John 13:1), and unexpected return (Luke 12:40).  There would be episodes of healing (John 4:52), seasons of true worship (John 4:23), and moments of remembrance (John 16:4).  So conscious was Jesus of the steadfast love of God enduring throughout the meandering course of human history that he could give himself freely and fully to the current events surrounding him.  Far from being swept along by time’s rush and tumble, Jesus lived life purposefully and therefore patiently. (Weavings, July/August 2003, John Mogabgab, p. 2)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that your sense of timing is always perfect, even if it doesn’t always agree with my own.  Forgive my impatience and my lack of trust.

time, wednesday

Wednesday, August 20

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: 2 Corinthians 6:1-2

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Hope that grows out of trust puts us in a different relationship to the hours and days of our lives.  We are constantly tempted to look at time as chronology, as chronos, as a series of disconnected incidents and accidents.  This one way we think we can manage time or subdue tasks.  Or a way that we feel the victims of our schedules.  For this approach also means that time becomes burdensome.  We divide our time into minutes and hours and weeks and let its compartments dominate us.

     As still not completely converted people we immerse ourselves in clock time.  Time becomes a means to an end, not moments in which to enjoy God or pay attention to others.  And we end up believing that the real thing is always still to come.  Time for celebrating or praying or dreaming gets squeezed out.  No wonder we get fatigued and deflated!  No wonder we sometimes feel helpless or impoverished in our experience of time.

     But the gospel speaks of “full” time.  What we are seeking is already here.  The contemplative Thomas Merton once wrote, “The Bible is concerned with time’s fullness, the time for an event to happen, the time for an emotion to be felt, the time for a harvest or for the celebration of a harvest” (The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton).  We begin to see history not as a collection of events interrupting what we “must” get done.  We see time in light of faith in the God of history.  We see how the events of this year are not just a series of incidents and accidents, happy or unhappy, but the molding hands of God, who wants us to grow and mature.

     Time has to be converted, then, from chronos, mere chronological time, to kairos, a New Testament Greek word that has to do with opportunity, with moments that seems ripe for their intended purpose.  Then, even while life continues to seem harried, while it continues to have hard moments, we say, “Something good is happening amid all this.”  We get glimpses of how God might be working out his purposes in our days.  Time becomes not just something to get through or manipulate or manage, but the arena of God’s work with us.  Whatever happens—good things or bad, pleasant or problematic—we look and ask, “What might God be doing here?” We see the events of the day as continuing occasions to change the heart.  Time points to Another and begins to speak to us of God. (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: Lord, help us to be more concerned with kairos than chronos; with your time—and timing—rather than our own.  Amen.

time, tuesday

Tuesday, August 19

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it.  Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment.  Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities.  In the Name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Isaiah 58:13-14

Reading for Reflection:

 

     We redeem time (Ephesians 5:15-16 KJV) when we allow a moment or a series of moments to become for us a vehicle of God’s presence.  To redeem time is to make time transparent so that we experience it not as pressure (“Hurry up, hurry up, we haven’t enough time”), but as a sign of the holy.  Obviously, we can’t always live this way, but we can live in such a way that the redemption of time becomes an ongoing and consistent possibility.  I call this living in a Sabbath rhythm, and I am more and more convinced that the development of such a rhythm is at the heart of the recovery of authentic spirituality. 

     We can begin living in a Sabbath rhythm by deliberately setting aside one day in the week that will be lived differently from the rest.  For some people Sunday becomes this kind of day.  It seems to me, however, that this tends to confuse the issue.  For the Christian, the Sabbath is not the same as Sunday; it is a preparation for Sunday.  The idea is to take a day a week and deliberately slow it down.  Our Sabbath can be Saturday or a regular workday, but it is a day that is planned.

     We begin the day with a prayer of simple awareness, which of course can take many forms.  One way is to let your mind, at the point of awakening, focus on all that surrounds you, without analyzing or judging.  Simply take note of what you see and hear—the room, the light, the sounds.  Be aware of yourself and of the life that has been given to you and, at this moment of awareness, place the day in God’s keeping. (Ministry and Solitude by James C. Fenhagen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

          
Closing Prayer: O Lord of the Sabbath, thank you that you have woven rest into the very fabric of creation, and that when I am not making space for Sabbath rest, I am actually going against the very image I was created in.  Give me the wisdom and the courage to stop my frantic running around and enter into the rest for which I was made.  Amen.