seeing, wednesday

Wednesday, April 30

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

Opening Prayer: Then run, faithful souls, happy and tireless, keep up with your Beloved who marches with giant strides from one end of heaven to the other.  Nothing is hidden from His eyes.  He walks alike over the smallest blade of grass, the tallest cedars, grains of sand or rocky mountains.  Wherever you go He has gone before.  Only follow Him and you will find Him everywhere. (The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre De Caussade)

Scripture Reading for the Day: 2 Chronicles 16:7-9

Reading for Reflection:

     For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God.  I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself.  I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

     Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, to love me.  The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by Him?”  The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?”  And finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?”  God is looking in the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.

     It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God.   (The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                        

Closing Prayer: My gracious Heavenly Father, with gratitude I bow before you today.  I rejoice in the little, ordinary things which so often are accepted by me unrecognized and which so frequently pass by unnoticed.  For life itself I give You thanks.  For the breath which I borrow from You, I am grateful.  For the strength to pursue a course of active labor, I offer my gratitude.  That the lily of the field and the sparrow of the air are under Your guiding and protecting hand, remind me.  In the name of Your Son, my Savior, I pray.  Amen. (Daily Prayer Companion by C. Ralston Smith)