grasping, day 3

Come to Stillness:

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

Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, forgive me when my bleeding and wounded heart causes me to grasp for life and relief from any and every source available. Instead, help me to reach only for you—that I might touch the fringe of your robe and find healing and wholeness for the brokenness of my heart and soul. In Your Name I pray. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 16

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 6:19-34

Reading for Reflection:

Praying is no easy matter.  It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your being, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.  Why would you really want to do that?  Perhaps you would let the other cross your inner threshold to see something or to touch something, but to allow the other into the place where your most intimate life is shaped—that is dangerous and calls for defense.

     The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists.  The image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.  A story about an elderly woman brought to a psychiatric center exemplifies this attitude.  She was wild, swinging at everything in sight, and scaring everyone so much that the doctor had to take everything away from her.  But there was one small coin which she gripped in her fist and would not give up.  In fact, it took two people to pry open that squeezed hand.  It was as though she would lose her very self along with the coin.  If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing more, and be nothing more.  That was her fear.

     When you are invited to pray you are asked to open your tightly clenched fists and give up your last coin.  But who wants to do that?  A first prayer, therefore, is often a painful prayer, because you discover you don’t want to let go.  You hold fast to what is familiar, even if you aren’t proud of it. (With Open Hands by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

It is a long spiritual journey of trust, for behind each fist, another one is hiding, and sometimes the process seems endless.  Much has happened in your life to make all those fists, and at any hour of the day or night you might find yourself clenching your fists again out of fear. (With Open Hands by Henri J. M. Nouwen)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Tender Mercy

Hear my cry for mercy
As I call to You
As I lift my hands in Spirit
And in Truth

We cry mercy
(in the name of the Father most Holy)
We cry mercy
(in the name of the Son Who was slain)
Lord have mercy
(in the name of the Spirit indwelling)
Tender mercy Lord
You are mercy (in the name of the Father most Holy)
You are mercy (in the name of the Son Who was slain)
Lord have mercy (in the name of the Spirit indwelling)
Tender mercy Lord

           In Your tender mercy
           Brought by grace through faith
           I will lift my heart
           Toward Your most Holy place

Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, give me the grace and the strength and the courage to take off that which I use to cover myself; and to clothe myself only and always in you alone. Amen. (JLB)