a new thing

Opening Prayer: Lord, thank you that you are always at work within and around us, whether we can perceive it or not.  Help us to pay careful attention today, so that we do not miss what you are up to.  Amen.

Scripture: Isaiah 43:18-19

Journal: What new thing is God doing in you these days?  What is he doing new within you?  What is he doing new around you?  How is he inviting you into that?

Reflection: See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." ~Isaiah 43:19

God: I am doing a new thing, something deep in your heart and soul.  Something so deep that you may not even be able to perceive it yet, but it is there.  I am waking something up in you.  I am coming alive in you in some brand new way.  All you have to do is pay attention, be open, make room for it to grow and take root, and then fully receive it.  I will do the rest.  What do you think about that?

Me: Yes, please!

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Be born in us anew today, O Lord, that we might become more and more the people you long for us to be.  Amen.

i have and i will

Opening Prayer: For all that has been—Thanks.  For all that shall be—Yes. ~Dag Hammarskold

Scripture: Isaiah 42:5-7

Journal: How does it make you feel to know that God has already called you in righteousness?  What does that produce within you?  How does it make you feel to know that he will take hold of your hand, keep you and make you to be?  What does that produce in you?  How does that help you to live life today?

Reflection: I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.  I will keep you and will make you to be. . .” (Isaiah 42:6)

     “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness.  It is something I have already done.  I, the Lord, Jehovah, the Eternal One, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, have already called you my very own.  In the same way I called the light into the darkness, and in the same way I called the light Day and the darkness Night, so I have already called you.  I have given you a name and an identity that can never be taken away.  It is who you really are.  You are mine and I love you.  Never, ever, forget that.  Live in the freedom and truth of that love every day.  

     But the beautiful thing is that it doesn’t stop there, for there are also things that I will do.  I will take hold of your hand, you are not alone.  I will lead and guide you.  I will walk with you and be intimately close to you.  I will also keep you.  I will protect you and provide for you and take care of you.  And finally, I will make you to be.  You do not have to make yourself to be, I will make you to be.  I will make you to be who you really are—the uniquely beautiful work of my limitless love and wild imagination.  

     So live your life in full knowledge and joyful expectation of these things.”

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Thank you, O God, that I am yours.  Thank you that you have spoken me into being in righteousness, that I have a true name and a true identity and a true calling in you that can never be taken away.  Help me to live my life, this day, in the full assurance of that truth and in joyful anticipation of that future.  Amen.

yes

Opening Prayer: Thank you, O God, that you are always yes in Christ Jesus.  May the yes of my soul meet the yes of your heart and produce the fruit of the kingdom within and around me.  Amen.

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 1:20-22

Journal: How does it make you feel to hear that God is yes rather than no?  Where do you find his yes deep within you?  Where have you heard it or been captured by it recently?  

Reflection: God is yes.  What a different story from the one many of us grew up hearing; how God was mostly—if not completely—no.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  God is yes, and all of the promises of God are yes in Jesus.  Thus, when the yes of God combines with the yes that he buried deep within our souls (the image of the God in whom we were made), something incredibly special happens—an amen pours forth.  Who God is and who we are come mysteriously and marvelously together.  We have union with God in Christ.  It is God’s deepest desire for us.

     If we will search deep within our hearts for that yes, we will find him, and be found by him.  We will become more and more the people he created us to be.  His yes and our yes will be in complete harmony.  When we search his Word each day, his yes will find us, and our yes will well up in our hearts.  It is his pursuit of us.  It is the place where we come alive.  So search you heart, and his Word, today for his yes—and yours.  Amen and amen!

Prayer

Closing Prayer: For all that has been—Thanks.  For all that shall be—Yes. ~Dag Hammarskold

becoming versus settling

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you came to earth to hasten my becoming.  Forgive me when I am content to settle for less than that.  Amen.

Scripture: John 1:10-13

Journal: What word best describes your life these days, becoming or settling?  Why?  What does becoming look like for you these days?  How is God calling you to become?

Reflection: “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor a human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:10-13)

     It is so easy to get lulled to sleep in this life—to get so busy surviving and maintaining and managing—that we forget that the chief end of us all is that of becoming.  In the fury and the flurry of daily living, we lose track of the radical nature of the gospel call and end up settling for far less than what God desires for us.  He wants us continually becoming.  Life with Jesus is always about becoming, not about settling.

     Jesus doesn’t want us to simply accept life as it is, but to strain toward and reach out for all that it can become.  I am not talking about earning or achieving or striving, I am talking about simply becoming more and more who and what we were created to be—children of God.  When we truly believe that we are God’s beloved children, and fully receive the gift of his great love and affection, we will begin to become more like him.  Our lives will be an expression of the very life of God welling up within us and then expressing itself through us.  That’s what becoming is all about.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Jesus, do not let me get lulled to sleep by life.  Help me never to settle for less, when you want so much more.  Wake me up to your love and affection, so that I can be captured by it completely and, thus, become all that you dreamt me to be.  Amen.

joseph

Opening Prayer: Remind me, O God, that this life is not about me, but about you.  Help me to be who and what you want me to be today—no more, no less.  Amen. 

Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25

Journal: How is God asking you to be more like Joseph today?

Reflection:  You’ve got to love Joseph.  Lesser men would have buckled under the social, spiritual, and emotional strain of all that God was asking him to believe and to do, but not him.  He did not flinch, but remained true to who he was and to who God was asking him to be.  

     He loved and cared for his wife, in spite of the social and religious stigma attached to her being pregnant before they were married.  He listened to, believed, and obeyed his God, rather than being swayed and coerced by the voices and opinions of those around him.  In fact, even in the midst of being pressured by friends and family to take matters into his own hands, he, instead, did all that the angel of the Lord had commanded.

     And perhaps most remarkably of all, he was willing to play a seemingly minor (yet significant) role in God’s unfolding story of redemption.  I mean, who does that?  Who in their right mind is willing to be a background character in the powerful play?  Joseph, that’s who.

     I have so much to learn from him—one of the main things being that this life is not about me, but about God. It is about Jesus coming in and through me into his world.  I am not the main character, even in my own story.  For even my own story is not about me, but about him.  He occupies center stage.  I am but a minor character in his unfolding drama, not vice versa.  Maybe it’s time I started living like it—like Joseph did.  

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, be the center of my life, this day and every day.  Help my whole life to revolve around you, and not vice versa.  Amen. 

scarcity and abundance

Opening Prayer: Jesus, thank you that you came to show us how to live out of abundance rather than scarcity.  Teach us how to do that.  Amen.

Scripture: John 10:10

Journal: How are you living out of scarcity rather than abundance these days?  What does that look like?  How is Jesus calling you to more than that?  How does he want you to live in abundance?  Why do you think you continue to live in scarcity?

Reflection: It’s amazing how easy it is to fall into the trap of seeing (and living) life in terms of scarcity rather than abundance.  Scarcity has to do with the notion that there is only so much (love, significance, affirmation, notoriety, money, etc.) to go around, so you better grab yours or someone else will.  Thus, it creates a lot of anxiety and insecurity and uncertainty and pressure within us.  We are constantly jockeying and posturing and measuring and comparing and performing, in order to get our share.  Which makes it impossible to love and appreciate and celebrate each other, since others are threats and competitors rather than brothers and sisters.  The Enemy loves this kind of thinking.  In fact, he majors in it.  It does exactly what he has come to do—it kills and destroys.

     Jesus, however, talked about abundance.  In fact, he came that we might have life that is abundant.  He came to show us that there more than enough love and affection and significance to go around.  His love is unlimited, it is super-abundant, and it is eternal.  It will never run out or dry up.  There is no expiration date.  And when I really start to believe that, I can really live, and I can really love the way he created me to.

     So this very day, Jesus wants me to live in, and out of, the abundance of his love.  The only question is: Will I?

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Jesus, give me the abundant life that you created for me, and help me to be a vehicle of that abundance to others.  Amen.

magnify

Opening Prayer: My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble estate of his servant.

Scripture: Luke 1:39-56

Journal: What is your life magnifying these days?  Who are you making great?  What would it look like to make God great in your life and work and ministry?  How will you magnify him today?

Reflection: Mary got it.  She just got it.  She understood that, as hard as it probably was to remember sometimes, this life was not about her, but about God.  You can see it in her response to the angel.  You get a deep sense of it as you consider the full implications of exactly what the angel was telling her.  And you definitely see it—and hear it—in her prayer.

     “My soul magnifies the Lord.  My soul makes him great, enlarges him, draws all of the attention to him.”  That is what the human soul was created to do.  The sole purpose of our lives is to make God great, to magnify him, to enlarge him, to continually proclaim and reveal his greatness.  Everything else is merely distraction.

     How will you magnify him today?

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Thank you, O God, that during this season we celebrate your coming into the world through Mary.  And now it is our turn to be the means through which you enter the world again and again.  Help us to magnify you.  Amen.