questions, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
O God, our Father, Creator of all that is, give us the courage to wrestle with the questions you ask us rather than jumping to some immediate answer—thereby cutting off any possibility of real growth or struggle. Help us stay in the question long enough to hear what it is you have for us there. In the name of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 13

Scripture for the Day: John 11:17-44

Reading for Reflection:

You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. (Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Closing Prayer:
It seems to me Lord
that we search
much too desperately
for answers
when a good question
holds as much grace
as an answer.

(Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)