frustration

Opening Prayer: O Lord, help me to pay careful attention to my own frustrations, because they might just be there to teach me that my plans are not your plans, and my goals are not your goals.  Help, O Lord, to align my desires with your desires, so that I can do your will, and not my own, all the days of my life.

Scripture: Psalm 33:10-11

Journal: What is your level of frustration these days?  What is causing it?  What is God trying to teach you as a result?  How might your frustration level be connected to having different goals

Reflection: A wise saint once told me that frustration is always a result of blocked goals.  So, whenever we are frustrated, we need to determine what goal is being blocked, and decern whether or not that goal is legitimate.

That’s where prayer and reflection and alignment come in, because quite often the goals God has for us are very different from the goals we have for ourselves.  And when that is the case, he tends to frustrate or thwart our efforts because his plans for us are both best and eternal.

My desires, for example, might be for a life of comfort and ease, when he desires so much more for me than that.  He desires my growth.  He desires that I become humble and godly and loving, and those things never come easy.  In as loving a way as possible, God blocks and thwarts and frustrates in order to make us more into the people he dreamt us to be.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that you love me enough to thwart and frustrate me when I am settling for less than you desire for me.  Align my mind with your mind, and my heart with your heart, so that I can become more and more like you each day.

shepherd and sheep

Opening Prayer: God, my shepherd!  I don’t need a thing. (Psalm 23:1, MSG)

Scripture: Psalm 23:1-6

Journal: How are you experiencing the Lord as your shepherd these days?  What does it mean that you are his sheep? What is God saying to you today?

Reflection: The Lord is my shepherd; I am his sheep.  He will take full and complete care of me; I do not need to worry.  In a barren land, he finds me green pastures and makes me lie down.  In a dry and arid place, he leads me to still waters where I can drink and be refreshed and renewed.  He guides me in the good way, so I don’t get lost or confused, all for his name’s sake. 

Even when the stench of death surrounds me and darkness overwhelms me, I will not fear for he is right in the middle of it with me, protecting me and directing me with his staff and his rod.  His love and his power bring me so much peace and comfort. 

He sets a table for the two of us to share an elaborate and intimate meal together.  He pours fragrant and healing oil on my head to show me that I am loved and valued.  My heart, just like my cup at his table, is always filled to overflowing with abundance and delight.  He pursues me unceasingly with his goodness and his unfailing love, so that I may live in his house, with him, forever.

Pray

Closing Prayer: The Lord is my shepherd; I have all I need. (Psalm 23:1, NLT)

sanctification

Opening Prayer: O Lord, take away everything from my life that keeps me from being yours and yours alone.  You desire all of me, not just certain parts.  Sanctify me through and through by the power and work of your Holy Spirit, that I may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

Journal: What does the word “sanctification” mean to you?  How is that process going?  What in your life is still keeping you from be fully God’s?  Will you give that to him?

Reflection:

a stripping away

a peeling back of the layers

of strength and adequacy 

of self-importance 

and self-sufficiency 

until nothing is left

i stand naked

and alone

before you

and you say

finally

I see you

the real you

and it’s the most

beautiful thing

I’ve ever seen

Pray

Closing Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, that once you begin a work, you are faithful to complete it.  Complete your work in and through me, so that I can clearly reflect you in all I do, think, and say.  All for your glory, not my own.

 

why are you so afraid?

Opening Prayer: “Dear Lord, show me your kindness and your gentleness, you who are meek and humble of heart. So often I say to myself, 'The Lord loves me,' but very often this truth does not enter into the center of my heart. The fact that I get so easily upset because of a disappointment, so easily angered because of a slight criticism, and so easily depressed because of a slight rejection, shows that your love does not yet fill me. Why, otherwise, would I be so easily thrown off balance? What can people do to me, when I really know that you love me, care for me, protect me, defend me, guide me and support me? What does a small—or even a great—failure mean, when I know that you are with me in all my sorrows and turmoil? Yet time and again I have to confess that I have not let your love descend fully from my mind into my heart, and that I have not let my knowing grow into a real, full knowledge that pervades all of my being.” ―A Cry for Mercy by Henri Nouwen

Scripture: Matthew 8:23-27

Journal: Why are you so afraid?  Where and how does fear have a hold on your life?  How will you be led by love rather than fear?

Reflection: “O you of little faith, why are you so afraid?  Why do you allow fear to dominate and control your life?  Do you not trust me?  Do you not know how deeply I love you and how diligently I care for you?  Do you not believe that I and good and work for good things for your life?

Stop letting your insecurity and anxiety determine how you live.  Stop allowing your needy heart to control your life.  Stop from making earning, proving, and performing your default way of being.  Stop worrying so much about what others think of you and how people see you.  Stop competing and comparing.  Stop allowing your life to be controlled by your circumstances.  In other words, stop living out of fear!

Instead, live out of love.  My love.  Be so convinced of my deep love and affection for you that you are free to love others as a result.  Free to love them as I love them.  Free to love them as I love you.  O you of little faith, why are you so afraid?"

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help my life to be lived out of love rather than out of fear.  Only you can give me the strength and the grace and the courage to do that.  Have mercy on me.

doors

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, sometimes the doors you open before us are daunting and scary and challenging. We’re not quite sure if we have what it takes to walk through them.  We’re not quite sure what they will mean or what they will require, so we shrink back from accepting your invitation.  But life with you, Lord Jesus, is always and incredible adventure, so give us the courage and the grace and the strength to always take you up on your invitation to deeper life, greater growth, and more passionate love.

Scripture: Revelation 3:8

Journal: What door has God opened before you?  What is God inviting you to?  Will you go in?  What does that look like?

Reflection:

          doors

there are doors

that open in our lives

and if we have the courage

to step through them

we will be met by Jesus

on the other side

he will lead us deeper

into his great heart of love

and what looked like a crisis

becomes a conversion

an invitation into

intimacy and affection

beyond our wildest dreams

every crisis offers a conversion

if we are willing to embrace it

and meet Jesus in the midst of it

Pray

Closing Prayer: Help us, O Lord, to step through the door you have placed before us, whatever it may be and wherever it may lead.  Knowing that life with you is life in abundance.

soar

Opening Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that you desire us to soar.  Forgive us when we refuse your invitation because we are afraid to leave the comfort and security of the nest.

Scripture: Isaiah 40:27-31

Journal: How is God inviting you to soar?  What does soaring look like?  What does it take to get there?  What will it require you to leave behind?

Reflection:

                soar

come to the edge of the nest

hear the invitation of God

receive his gentle push

leave the safety and security

of what you have known

and take the leap into

the vast unknown

soar into the heavens

on the winds of his breath

take flight and become

all you were created to be

Pray

Closing Prayer: O Lord, do not let insecurity and fear keep me from taking you up on your invitation to fly.  New life always requires a leap of faith.  Give me the courage and the strength and the grace to take that leap, whatever it may look like.

                                                               

nothing

Opening Prayer: I will presume to speak to you, My Lord, though I am mere dust and ashes.  If I imagined myself to be anything more, you would confront me with my sins, which bear witness against me.  But if I humble myself and acknowledge my nothingness, if I cast away all self-esteem and reduce myself to dust, then your grace will come to me, and your light will enter my heart.  So let the last trace of pride be swallowed up in the depths of my own nothingness and perish forever.  Let me see myself for what I am and what I have been, as mere nothingness.  Now, Lord, look upon me.  Your gaze can turn my nothingness into newness, my darkness into light, my misery into joy, my death into life.  When I become nothing, I discover both myself and you.  When I admit I deserve only punishment, you shower me with blessings.  You are my salvation, my power, my strength.  Amen. ~Thomas à Kempis

Scripture: John 15:5

Journal: When Jesus says, “Abide in me,” what does that mean to you?  How well are you doing it?  What most hinders that?

Reflection:

nothing

Lord

i am nothing

apart from you

i can do nothing

except by your

grace and mercy

and i long to be

filled with nothing

but your unfailing love

be everything

in my nothingness

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord, give me eyes to see like you see, ears to hear what you hear, and a heart to respond like you respond.  Abiding in you means that I am wholly led by your life and your love and your Spirit, at all times and in all ways.  I am nothing but a hot mess apart from you.