wilderness, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                                ~St. Augustine of Hippo

 

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Exodus 3:1-14

Reading for Reflection:

It is always on the backside of the desert that we come to the mountain of God—on the backside of the desert of self, at the end of our own dreams and ambitions and plans.

     Moody said that when Moses first undertook to deliver Israel he looked this way and that way (Ex. 2:12), but when he came back from Horeb he looked only one way, God’s way.  But before he saw God’s way he had to come back to the backside of the desert.

     And poor Moses had made quite a come-down from the courts of Egypt to the desert of Midian.  He carried in his hand only a shepherd’s rod, fit symbol of his humiliation.  God demanded that he cast even that to the ground (Ex. 4:3).  And when he took it up again it became henceforth the “rod of God” (4:20)!

     If God has brought you to the backside of the desert, if you are reduced, as it were, to a shepherd’s rod, cast even that gladly at His feet and He will restore it to you the rod of God—and with it you shall work wonders in His Name so long as you “endure as seeing Him Who is invisible.” (Consider Him by Vance Havner)

 

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.

Closing Prayer:

Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

     I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                         ~Ignatius of Loyola