where is your hope?

Opening Prayer: “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” (Ps. 131:3)

Scripture: Psalm 131:1-3

Journal: Where is your hope?  What would it look like to put your hope in the Lord?  How do you know whether or not you are putting your hope in the Lord?

Reflection: “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” (Ps. 131:3) Where is your hope?  Who, or what, do you really put your hope in?  If you look at your life, it will give you a pretty good idea of the answer to that question.  Your actions will always show you where your hope really lies. 

Waiting for the Lord is one surefire way to tell.  Waiting for the Lord shows us where our hope really lies.  If we are willing and able to wait for the Lord, it shows that our hope is really in him, and if we are always charging ahead, it shows that our hope is really in ourselves. 

Pray

Closing Prayer: We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. (Psalm 33:20-21)

wait in hope

Opening Prayer: We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. (Psalm 33:20-21)

Scripture: Romans 8:18-25

Journal: What do you hope for?  How do you think those things will come about?  What does it mean to put your hope in the Lord?  How is he asking you to wait patiently?

Reflection: “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Rom. 8:25) There is an intimate connection between hoping and waiting.  Until we fully recognize and acknowledge that the things we most deeply long for—like healing, wholeness, freedom, and peace—cannot be accomplished by our own power, gifts, and efforts, we will always be frustrated.  When we long for things that only God can bring about, our only option is to wait in hope and trust that God’s heart is good, and he will take care of us.  Unfortunately, we are not very good at waiting patiently, which means that, in most cases, our hope is in ourselves rather than in our God.  Thus, we constantly try to manufacture and produce, to fix and manipulate, rather than wait patiently.

Pray

Closing Prayer: May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” (Psalm 33:22)

only you

Opening Prayer: “Strengthen the feeble hands, and steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’” (Isaiah 35:3-4)

Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-10

Journal: What does the scripture for today do within you?  What does it stir up?  What does it disrupt?  How does it offer you help and hope?

Reflection: Only you, O God, can make a parched land glad and make the wilderness blossom and bloom.  Only you can make water gush forth in the desert and make streams flow in the wasteland.  Only you can turn burning sand into pools of water and transform thirsty ground into bubbling springs.  Only you can turn the wilderness into a place of life and hope.  Do that again today, we pray.  Lord, have mercy on us.

Pray

Closing Prayer: “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” (Isaiah 35:10)

out of and in to

Opening Prayer: O Lord, give me the courage and the strength and the grace to leave the old behind, so that I may accept your invitation to step into the new.

Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:7-9

Journal: What is God leading you out of these days?  And what is he leading you into?

Reflection: “And the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil, and oppression.  So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.  He brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Deut. 26:7-9)

The two movements of God in this passage are unmistakable: He leads the Israelites out of Egypt, in order to lead them into the promised land.  That’s kind of the way He works; God is always leading us out of one thing to lead us into another.  Out of darkness and into light.  Out of brokenness and into wholeness.  Out of chaos and into peace.  Out of slavery and into freedom.  Out of fear and into love.  The first thing must be left behind in order for the second thing to be fully realized.

What is God leading you out of these days and what is he leading you into?  What is he asking you to leave behind and what is he inviting you to step into?  What does he want you to let go of and what does he want you to take hold of?

Pray

Closing Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that you are always inviting us out of the old and into the new.  Help us to hear your call today and take you up on your invitation, whatever it may be.

action and contemplation

Opening Prayer: “I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

Scripture: Psalm 131:1-3

Journal: Is your soul like a weaned child with its mother right now?  Why or why not?  What would happen if you actually took the time right now to stop and rest in the loving embrace of your God?  Will you?

Reflection: “When there is a crisis in the Church, it is always here: a crisis of contemplation.

     The church wants to feel able to explain about her spouse even when she has lost sight of him; even when, although she has not been divorced, she no longer knows his embrace, because curiosity has gotten the better of her and she has gone searching for other people and other things.” (The God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto)

We talk about being a weaned child with its mother, we read about it, we study it, we teach it, and we even write about it.  But do we do it?  Do we actually ever become a weaned child with its mother?  That is the crisis of contemplation.

Action that is not born out of contemplation has no power or authenticity.  It is just theory and dogma without experience and encounter.  We must stop talking about it and just do it!  Become a weaned child with its mother!  For only then will we be able to experience the stilled and quieted heart of one whose hope and love and life are rooted firmly in God alone.  Only then do we have any hope of being a non-anxious presence in this broken, chaotic, and fearful world.

Pray

Closing Prayer: O Lord, help me not just to talk about being a weaned child with its mother, but help me to actually become a weaned child with its mother.  Help me to live every minute of my life in your strong and loving embrace.

connectedness

Opening Prayer: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord ore than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.” (Psalm 130:1-8)

Scripture: Psalm 130:1-8

Journal: What does praying and reading this psalm do within you?  What is stirred?  What is challenged?  What words or images stick out the most to you?  Why?  What is God saying to you through them?

Reflection: Have mercy, wait for the Lord, put your hope in the Lord, and trust in the Lord are all interconnected.  If you take out one of them out, the whole thing falls down.  Thus, all are essential, and all are interdependent as we walk with God. 

Mercy involves the realization of my immense need for Jesus—not merely in salvation (which is huge), but in all things.  It involves me realizing that I cannot do or accomplish anything of eternal value on my own.  Not one thing.  I am totally helpless and dependent on God and his power.

If I can do nothing (as Jesus tells me in John 15:5), then I am totally dependent on God’s mercy for anything and everything.  Which is not a good look for us.  We do everything we can to make sure we never have to depend on anyone.  But the truth is that all of us are totally dependent on God and his mercy.  Therefore, our only recourse is to wait for the Lord.

But we can’t really wait for the Lord if our hope is not in the Lord.  This is where the lines get a little blurry, because it is hard for us to see, at times, what our hope is really in.  Sometimes our hope is in our gifts and abilities.  Sometimes it is in the gifts and abilities of others.  Sometimes it’s in our circumstances, our performance, or the opinions and affirmations of those around us.  All of which point to our hope being in ourselves instead of in our God.

So, it all comes down to trust.  We can’t possibly hope in the Lord—or beg him for mercy or wait for him—if we do not trust him.  It’s as simple as that.  Which brings us right back to begging for mercy.  For when we cry out for mercy, God gives it to us 100% of the time.  It may not look like we want it to—which is a mercy in and of itself—but it is exactly what we need.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Hope in the Lord, O my soul; wait for him.  Do not take matters into your own hands, but trust in him to move, speak, and act in whatever way he sees fit.  That’s what walking with God is all about; he leads, and we follow.

come and rest

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, we are tired and weary, but for some reason we refuse to come to you and rest.  We are so busy carrying our own heavy yoke that we never really consider carrying your easy yoke instead.  Help us to have the courage and the strength and the grace to come to you, to take you up on your beautiful invitation.  Then we will be finally able to experience the rest and the peace and the refreshment that only you can offer.

Scripture: Matthew 11:25-30

Journal: Do you resist rest?  How and why?  Are you hesitant to come to Jesus?  What causes that hesitation?  Will you take him up on his invitation today?

Reflection: “Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) What a beautiful invitation, and yet we rarely, if ever, take Jesus up on it.

Why is that?  Why are we so resistant to rest?  Why are we so hesitant to come?  Jesus gives us an open invitation into the life and joy and rest of the Trinity and we refuse.  Why on earth would we do that?  Are our egos so big that we think we can manage and control our lives better than he can?  Are we so prideful and delusional that we would rather sink or swim on our own than surrender to his care, direction, and control?

It’s nothing new; Isaiah and Jeremiah ran into the same thing: “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy one of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’” (Isaiah 30:15) “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’  But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16)

What is wrong with us?  God offers us the moon and we settle for the darkness.  He offers us a life of peace and joy and rest, and we settle for anxiety, weariness, and busyness.  We’re a piece of work, huh?

Pray

Closing Prayer: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 62:5-6)