made in his image, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
Blessed are you, God of all creation.  Let us who are made in your image and are sustained by your hand reflect you in all that we do, that in all things you may be glorified, forever and ever.  Amen.  (Work of God)


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 139

Scripture for the Day: Colossians 3:1-17

Reading for Reflection:

Our very existence is one of the never-to-be-repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time.  Because we are made in God’s image and likeness, you and I are yet another promise that he has made to the universe that He will continue to love it and care for it.

     Yet even if we grasp the fact that we are a word uttered by God, we may not grasp what he is trying to say through us.  In Seeds of Contemplation Merton writes, “God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of himself.  A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it.  But if I am true to the concept God utters in me, if I am true to the thought in him I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere.  I shall be lost in him.” (Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning)

 

 

     You are a special and sacred word-of-God-made-flesh.  He loves you as you are.  He spoke your name and created you as a unique person.  So be who you are as created by God.  In prayer say your own word, sing your own song and be true to it.  (A Traveler Toward the Dawn by John Eagan)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: I Have a Maker

I have a Maker,

He formed my heart

Before even time began
My life was in His hands

He knows my name,
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And hears me when I call

I have a Father,
He calls me His own
He’ll never leave me
no matter where I go

Closing Prayer: 
Loving Creator, I have no quarrel with the way you have so carefully designed me in your image.  Truly I am your work of art.  Take me deeper today.  Show me my virtues—the wonders of your design for my life.  Help me not to be afraid to look into the depths of myself and believe in what I see—for I am the work of your hands.  If I can believe in what I see, then I can rejoice in what I see.  Precious in your sight, I am your work of art. Continue to create me in your image.  Amen. (Behold Your Life by Macrina Wiederkehr)