fear, wednesday

Wednesday, October 15

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

          

Opening Prayer: O Lord our God, help us to live our lives with the faith and courage necessary to live by love and not by fear.  Forgive me when my seeing and my thinking get so distorted that I allow fear to control me and make me its slave—even when I don’t fully realize it.  Seize my heart and soul with your perfect love in such a way that it drives out all fear and gives me the freedom to truly love, rather than manipulate, those in my life and world.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

          

Scripture Reading for the Day: Isaiah 43:1-7

Reading for Reflection:

 

     And there is another important point about love, something we have heard often, maybe even know in our heads, but forget so easily once we close the Bible.  God’s love is so powerful and expansive that it leaves no place for its hurtful, destroying opposite: fear.  Fear is unholy; fear keeps us from God; fear itself can become a false and devouring god.

     I wonder how many of our sinful ways of being and doing can be traced back to our fear: our fear of failure, our fear of change, our fear of growth, our fear of all that is other.  The fruits of our fear are bitter: violence, spiritual deadness, and contempt toward all whom we would push to the margins.  I suspect that most of our sinful isms—racism, sexism, ageism—are the fruits of fear. (My Soul in Silence Waits by Margaret Guenther)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer:  O Lord, thank you that when I pass through the waters, you will be with me; when I pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over me.  Thank you that when I walk through the fire, I will not be burned; the flames will not set me ablaze.  For you are the Lord my God, the Holy One of Israel, my Savior.  You are the one who tells me, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.  You are precious and honored in my sight and I love you.  Be not afraid.”  Amen.