moving downward, saturday

Saturday, July 26

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

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, give us the grace and the strength and the courage to follow your invitation downward—to the place where there is only you and nothing else.  In your name and for your sake we pray.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Luke 6:20-26

Reading for Reflection:

 

     I don’t guess I’ve ever really thought about the spiritual value of being excluded (v.22); probably because I’ve been too busy working hard to make sure I never am.  But when you stop for a minute to think about it, being excluded—just like being poor, hungry, weeping or hated—produces spiritual fruit within us that nothing else can quite produce, fruit that eventually makes us more like Jesus.  In fact, if you plant excluded in the soil of your soul, what is it most likely to produce?  Maybe the first thing to poke its head through the soil is a deep sense of humility.  There is something very humbling, even humiliating, about being excluded; something that lowers you, makes you smaller, takes you down into the dirt—which is exactly what the word actually means.  This humility then can lead us to a true dependence on God’s Spirit.  In a world where self-reliance and independence are encouraged, it can be easy to overlook the spiritual value of dependence.  To be dependent is to allow something else—something outside ourselves (God)—to be the main source of our value and worth, to give us our true sense of identity.  This dependence (on God rather than self, or others) can result in us being able to live our lives in a more detached way; a way of living that is not as affected by all of the voices and people and things in the world that tend to try and define us. 

     This detachment, in turn, leads to a true sense of freedom—freedom from needing people to define or determine us, freedom that allows a true lessening of the false self, in order to discover our truest self (our identity in Christ).  It is a freedom that makes space within us for God to work.  It is a freedom that ultimately allows us to really love others, rather than cling to them out of a demanding neediness.   Hmmm…so that’s humility, dependence, detachment, freedom, a lessening of self, and making space for God.  Sounds more and more like what Jesus had in mind.  As a matter of fact, it sounds more and more like Jesus himself.  So maybe, from now on, I need to not allow myself to get so out of sorts (sad, mad, frustrated, and feeling sorry for myself) when I feel excluded.  Because maybe, just maybe, excluded has a work to do in me.  Maybe excluded is something to embrace rather than something to run from or fight against.  Maybe excluded is something that will actually grow the very things within me that will make me more like Jesus himself.  Maybe that's why when Jesus uses the word excluded he also uses the words Blessed are you.  Who would’ve imagined?  Only God, I suppose.  Thanks be to Him!!!

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

           

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to want the things that will make me more like you, no matter how bizarre, or counter-cultural, they may seem.  For your glory.  Amen.