detachment

Opening Prayer: To you alone, O Lord, do I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. (Psalm 25:1-2)

Scripture: Psalm 62:1-8

Journal: What are you demanding from friends or family that only God is able to give?  What would it look like if you let go of that demand and trusted God to be the one to fully meet that need for you?  How would you be better able to love?

Reflection: Because we have been clinging to friends for support, we have left ourselves open for defeat and dismay.  The detached love of Christian friends is other than that.  I love you, I say, but I do not need you to tell me who I am.  For the Lord Himself does that, when He whispers His love in my ear every day.  Every day He creates me anew and sharpens my identity by grace.  From him comes strength.  He gives me my confidence, my self-assurance.  He awakens my sense of destiny.  Because of Him, I know the future stretches ahead, and he is calling me to find it.  And even when I walk together with Him, even when I can’t see my hand in front of me, I am sure.  And you, my friend, may walk together with us—with my Lord and with me.  And we will share our love generously with you.  But I will not lean on any human being for God-support.  When God sends his grace through another person, I will remember God first for that.  I will praise God first for that.  I will cherish the friend who was my channel of grace.  But I will not, dare not, make a god of her or him.  I will not lean too hard on my friends.  I know their frailties and I know my own.   (Clinging by Emilie Griffin) 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope comes from him.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.  (Psalm 62:5-6, ESV)

continuing on

Opening Prayer: Help me, O Lord, to always live life by the power of your Spirit, not by the works of my flesh.  Amen.

Scripture: Galatians 3:1-3

Journal: How are you “continuing on” in the life of the Spirit these days?  Where and how are you tempted to revert back to the ways of the “flesh?”

Reflection: I hardly know a more solemn warning in God’s Word than that which we find in the third chapter of Galatians, where Paul asked: “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”

     Do you understand what that means?  A terrible danger in Christian work, just as in a Christian life that begun with much prayer, begun in the Holy Spirit, is that it may be gradually shunted off on to the lines of the flesh; and the word comes: “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”  In the time of our first perplexity and helplessness, we prayed much to God, and God answered and God blessed, and our organization became perfected, and our band of workers became large: but gradually the organization and the work and the rush have so taken possession of us that the power of the Spirit, in which we began when we were a small company, has almost been lost.  Oh, I pray, note it well!  It was with a new prayer and fasting, with more prayer and fasting, that the company of disciples (in Acts 13:1-4) carried out the command of the Holy Ghost.  “My soul, wait thou only upon God.”  That is our highest and most important work.  The Holy Spirit comes in answer to believing prayer. (Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses by Andrew Murray)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.  Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.   Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.   Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy.  Amen. —St. Augustine

nothing

Opening Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help me to always remember your example, that the way to becoming something is by making ourselves nothing—for you.  Give us the grace and the courage to do as you did.  Amen.

Scripture: Philippians 2:5-11

Journal: ow are you trying to make yourself something these days?  What would it look like to make yourself nothing for Jesus?  Will you?

Reflection:

     irony

it is indeed

a sad irony

that i spend

most of my days

believing i’m nothing

but desperately trying

to become something

while God says

i am something 

who constantly needs

to make himself nothing

yet the only way

i can make myself nothing

is to truly believe

that You say

i am something

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to follow you by making myself nothing, that you might be seen as the Ultimate Something.  Amen.

overflow

Opening Prayer: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.  (Psalm 23:1-3, ESV)

Scripture: Psalm 23:5

Journal: What is your cup doing these days?  What is the state of your soul?  How, and to where, is the Good Shepherd trying to lead you?

Reflection: Those who are wise will see their lives as more like a reservoir than a canal.  The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then pours forth the overflow without loss to itself.  They know that a curse is on those who allow their own property to degenerate.  And if you think my opinion worthless then listen to the one who is wiser than I.  “Fools,” said Solomon, “come out with all their feelings at once but the wise subdue and restrain them.”  Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare.  So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled.  They are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves.

     I am convinced that no degree of charity that leads to salvation may be preferred to that suggested by the Wise One, “Have pity on your own soul, pleasing God.”  Listen to what a prudent and vigilant charity advises.  “This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves.  It is a question of balancing.”

     The reservoir resembles the fountain that runs to form a stream or spreads to form a pool only when its own waters are brimming over.  The reservoir is not ashamed to be no more lavish than the spring that fills it.  He who is the primal Fountain of Life, full in himself and filled with himself, gushed forth and danced into the secret places of the heavens about him, to fill them all with his favors.  And having endowed these remotest heights and recesses, he burst upon our earth, saving humans and beasts through his munificence, multiplying his mercies everywhere.  When he had first filled up the secret places, his teeming mercies billowed over.  They poured upon the earth and drenched it, to multiply its riches.  You must imitate this process.  First be filled and then control the outpouring.  The charity that is benign and prudent does not flow outward until it abounds within. (On the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (Psalm 23:5, ESV)

silence

Opening Prayer: For God alone my soul waits in silence. (Psalm 62:1, ESV)

Scripture: Psalm 62:1-6

Journal: What role does silence play in your spiritual journey?  How might the practice of silence nurture the life of God within you?  When, where, and how will you incorporate some silence into your life?

Reflection:

     silence

there is a pattern

woven into the 

fabric of creation

first silence

then God speaks

and finally

things are set 

into motion

why then

do we so often

start with action

rather than silence

action taken

without silence

is action taken

out of context

words spoken

without silence

are words spoken

out of context

for God alone

my soul waits

in silence

may that be true 

of me today 

O Lord

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. (Psalm 62:5, ESV)

blessed are you

Opening Prayer:  Lord Jesus, forgive me for always trying to be something, when you have called me to become nothing.  Ironically, the only way I can ever hope to become nothing, is to believe that you alone make me something.  Lord, have mercy.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 5:1-12

Journal: What do you hear God saying to you today?

Reflection: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3-12, ESV)

Blessed are those who are not full of themselves, for then there is room within them for the kingdom of God.  Blessed are those who groan over things not being as they were intended to be, for one day they will be made whole again.  Blessed are those who do not need to draw attention to themselves, for, with no need to compare or compete, they make this world a better place.  Blessed are those who long to be more like Jesus, for he is the only one who can fill them up.  Blessed are those whose hearts go out to those around them, for, because of that, God’s heart goes out to them.  Blessed are those who remain untainted by the world around them, for, with less to distort their vision, they will have a clearer view of God.  Blessed are those who bring harmony to all of creation, for they resemble their heavenly Father.  Blessed are those the world puts down because they are so full of light, for their very lives constantly convict those walking in darkness.

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  Lord Jesus, by your grace and mercy, help me to look more and more like you each day.  In your name, and by your power, we pray.  Amen.

ever-present

Opening Prayer: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore, we will not fear though earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1-3, NIV)

Scripture: Psalm 46:1-11

Journal: How aware of God’s presence and help are you on a daily basis?  How can you become more aware?

Reflection: It is such a beautiful thing that God is ever-present to us.  Thus, we never have to live in fear, even if the earth gives way or the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.  Regardless of what happens to us, around us, or even within us, God is always right there.  He is with us in ways we cannot even imagine.  How incredibly comforting that is!  I can't imagine any other way that we could possibly be still and know he is God apart from that wonderful truth.

     Our problem, however, does not come with God being ever-present to us, but with us being ever-present to him.  That is our challenge.  For if he is present to us, but we are not present to him, what good does that really do?  How can that give us any sense of peace, or comfort, or even help?  Don't get me wrong, God is not dependent on us in any way, shape, or form, in order to move and to act, but he wants more for us than that.  For if we are not aware of him moving and acting, then we have missed a great gift.  In fact, we are still at the mercy of our surroundings, or emotions, our moods, and our circumstances.  If, however, we are ever-present to him, as he is ever-present to us, that changes everything.
     In order for us to live life the way He intended it to be lived, we must learn how to be ever-present to God.  And maybe the words of this ancient prayer offer us just the help we need.  "God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble." If we plant these twelve words in our hearts, and repeat them over and over again with our mouths and in our minds (the scriptures call this meditation), they can function as a sweet companion throughout the day, helping us to be constantly connected and aware of the God we so often forget.  Give it a try today and tell me how it goes.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: God is our shelter and our strength. When troubles seem near, God is nearer, and He’s ready to help. So why run and hide? No fear, no pacing, no biting fingernails. When the earth spins out of control, we are sure and fearless. When mountains crumble and the waters run wild, we are sure and fearless. Even in heavy winds and huge waves, or as mountains shake, we are sure and fearless. (Psalm 46:1-3, The Voice)