the heart, tuesday

Tuesday, July 14

Opening Prayer: Dear Jesus, I ask you to come and lead me on this journey for my heart and for yours.  Be my Guide, and help me recover the lost life of my heart.  When I am confused, grant me clarity and insight.  When I am fearful and tempted to give up or check out, grant me courage to press on. When I am impatient or distracted, bring me back to what matters most.  When I am hurting, comfort me.  But in all, I pray you to restore me to fullness of the heart you set within me.  In your name I pray.  Amen. (The Sacred Romance Workbook by John Eldredge)

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:9-13

Journal: What are the things that have captured your heart?  How are you giving yourselves to those things?  How has God captured your heart?  How aware are you of the “eternity” he has placed in your heart?  How are you giving yourself to him these days?

Reflection:

 

     For the child, newborn, is a natural spy.  Only his inherent limitations impede him from consuming all the clues of the universe fitted to his perceiving capacities.  Sent here with the mission of finding the meaning buried in matter, of locating the central intelligence, he goes about his business briskly, devouring every detail within his developing grasp.  He is devoted to discovery, resists sleep in order to consume more data.  Never again will he seek to unearth the treasure buried in the field with such single-mindedness.  He has to learn the world from scratch, but the task seems nothing but a joy.  Yet gradually, over time, something goes wrong. 

     The spy slowly begins to forget his mission.  He spends so much time and effort learning the language, adopting the habits and customs, internalizing the thought patterns flawlessly, that somehow, gradually, imperceptibly, he becomes his cover.  He forgets what he’s about.  He goes to school, grows up.  He gets a job, collects his pay, buys a house, waters the lawn.  He settles down and settles in.  He wakes up each morning with the shape of his mission, what brought him here in the first place, grown hazier, like a dream that slides quickly away.  He frowns and makes an effort to remember.  But the phone rings or the baby cries, and he is distracted for the rest of the day.  Perhaps he forms a resolution to remember; still he seems helpless to keep the shape, the color of his mission clear in his mind.  Then one morning he wakes up and only yawns.  It must be there somewhere, buried in the brain cells, but at least superficially the memory is erased.  The spy goes native. (And the Tress Clap Their Hands by Virginia Stem Owens)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: You, O Lord, set eternity in our hearts and lit the fire of faith deep in our souls.  Help us now, we pray, to be all that you created us to be—living expressions of your unbridled creativity and unfailing love.  Amen.

the heart, monday

Monday, July 13

Opening Prayer: O God, what can we do of ourselves if you support us not but fall into sin and offend you?  Leave us not, therefore, to ourselves, but strengthen us in the inward man, that so we may at all times and in all things renounce our evil inclinations, which are incessantly endeavoring to withdraw our hearts from you.  Complete your conquest and make us all your own both now and forever.  Amen. (Disciplines for the Inner Life by Bob Benson and Michael W. Benson)

Scripture: Ezekiel 36:22-29

Journal: Where has your heart grown hard recently?  What are the places your heart is tender?  Where do you sense new life and a new spirit?  Where is God at work within you these days?

Reflection:

 

     Our heart, the center of our being, has been distorted by sin and wounded by life experiences.  In this condition, the light of God only made us turn away with feelings of guilt and shame.  For this reason, God has to begin the lifelong process of recreating the heart so that we can have the freedom to receive His love fully and return it unconditionally.  This transformation of the heart is both a prerequisite and an outcome of deepening intimacy with God.  God foretold what He would do through the prophet Ezekiel (Ez. 36:26-29).

     As God heals our hearts, remolding us the way we were intended to be (a heart of flesh), we learn to trust His love and forgiveness, to open ourselves freely to Him, and to discern His presence.  We begin to gain the ability to see and hear at a heart level. (Mansions of the Heart by R. Thomas Ashbrook)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen. (Disciplines for the Inner Life by Bob Benson and Michael W. Benson)

the heart, sunday

Sunday, July 12

Opening Prayer: O God, in all ages you have imparted yourself to man and set alight the fire of faith in his heart, grant to me the faith which comes from search.  Cleanse my life from all that negates and crushes faith, and fill it with the purity and honesty that foster it.  Cleanse me from the evil which makes unbelief its friend, and drive it far from me, so that, being willing in all things to do your will, I may know the truth which shall set me free.  Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen. (Daily Prayer Companion by Samuel M. Shoemaker)

Scripture: Ezekiel 11:17-21

Journal: What is the state of your heart these days?  What words or images best describe it?  What is God’s desire for your heart?

Reflection:

 

There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart.  We were born with it, it is never completely satisfied, and it never dies.  We are often unaware of it, but it is always awake.  It is the human desire for love.  Every person on this earth yearns to love, to be loved, to know Love.  Our true identity, our reason for being, is to be found in this desire. (The Awakened Heart by Gerald May) 

Prayers

Closing Prayer: O Lord, have mercy on us.  Change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.  Come into the deepest parts of our being and capture us with your unfailing love that our hearts might fully belong to you and you alone.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

hunger and thirst, saturday

Saturday, July 11

Opening Prayer:  O Lord, I am so hungry and thirsty for you!  Meet me now, during this time, and speak to the deepest places of my heart and soul.  Capture me with your great love and affection that I might love those in this world freely and well.  In your name, by your power, and for your glory.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 42:1-5

Journal: How does Psalm 42 speak for your heart right now?  How does it speak to your heart?

Reflection:

 

I speak to thirsty hearts whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them. (Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

     Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. (The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.  I thirst for God, the living God.  When can I go and stand before him?  Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?”  My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!  Why am I discouraged?  Why is my heart so sad?  I will put my hope in God!  I will praise him again—my Savior and my God! (Psalm 42:1-5, NLT)

hunger and thirst, friday

Friday, July 10

Opening Prayer:  Lord Jesus, thank you that you offer us yourself as food for our souls.  May we accept your invitation and feed on you each and every day, for nothing else will satisfy the deepest longings of our souls.  Amen.

Scripture: John 6:47-59

Journal: When you hear the words “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” what does it do in you?  How has his body and blood been real food and real drink to you? 

Reflection:

 

“Feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving,” say the words of the ancient prayer, and what rich and wonderful words they are!  They are words that invite us into a holy mystery.  They are words that invite us to find our soul’s deepest nourishment and sustenance in the body and blood of Jesus.  The sacraments act as entry points into the type of union and communion God most deeply desires with each of us.  They are physical signs that point to spiritual realities.  All of which give us an inside view of God’s heart and his deep desire for relationship with us.  For, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.”  Thanks be to God!       

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Loving Father, I surrender to you today with all my heart and soul. Please come into my heart in a deeper way. I say, “Yes” to you today. I open all the secret places of my heart to you and say, “Come on in.” Jesus, you are the Lord of my whole life. I believe in you and receive you as my Lord and Savior. I hold nothing back.  Holy Spirit, bring me to a deeper conversion to the person of Jesus Christ. I surrender all to you: my time, my treasures, my talents, my health, my family, my resources, my work, relationships, time management, successes and failures. I release it and let it go.  I surrender my understanding of how things “ought” to be, my choices and my will. I surrender to you the promises I have kept and the promises I have failed to keep. I surrender my weaknesses and strengths to you.  For the sake of Jesus.  Amen.

hunger and thirst, thursday

Thursday, July 9

Opening Prayer: Feed us this day, O God of life, with you Holy Word, that we might live not on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from your mouth.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-4

Journal: What is God’s word for you today?  What has he given you to feed on from his mouth today? 

Reflection:

 

     One of the great temptations of the spiritual life is the temptation to feed on things other than God.  It was even a temptation for Jesus—amplified by the fact that he had gone without food for forty days and forty nights.  “He was hungry,” the scriptures tell us, so why not take matters into your own hands and feed yourself?  I'll tell you why not, because once you start feeding yourself you will slowly and subtly begin to rely on yourself for everything.  Parker Palmer calls it practical atheism.  “Practical” because we are not atheists theologically, I mean, we believe in God, right?  So what’s the problem?  The problem is that, practically speaking, we just don’t live like we do.  We have a tendency to do everything ourselves.  We rely on our own gifts, resources, and skills to arrange life the way we want it to be.  And if we can’t, we will die trying.  We are the ones who control our direction and agenda, and then whenever something goes wrong we can always come running to God for help. 

     The simple truth is that we don’t rely on God—and his word—to feed us the way Jesus relied on him in the desert.  For the most part we’ve arranged our lives in such a way that we don’t need to.  If our souls get hungry we just run to the world for food, there is plenty to feed on there.  For instance, we can feed on our accomplishments and achievements.  We can feed on the attention and affirmation of others.  We can feed on our jobs, or our skills, or our assets, or even our families.  The options are endless.  The only problem is that none of these things can satisfy the deepest hunger of our souls.  These things were not created to fill us, which means we are never completely satisfied, and thus it keeps us always in pursuit of more.  I think this is why addiction happens.  The Enemy knows that if he can subtly deceive us into feeding ourselves, then he’s got us.  Then there is no real reason for us to depend on God, or on his Word, for our food. 

     I think that’s why I love this response from Jesus so much.  It recognizes and reveals where true food comes from--food that can satisfy.  And it gives us a beautiful example of seeing through the lies and deception of the Enemy, right to the truth, for “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Teach me to seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, or find you unless you show yourself to me.  Let me seek you in my desire, and desire you in my seeking.  Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you. ~St. Anselm

hunger and thirst, wednesday

Wednesday, July 8 

Opening Prayer: Help us not, O Lord, spend our time and our energy working for that which is not bread and ultimately does not satisfy.  But help us, O God, to come to you and eat what is good, that our souls might delight in the richest of fare.  Through Jesus.  Amen.

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-5

Journal: What are spending your “labor” on these days?  Is it satisfying you?  What does God’s invitation to “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” do within you?  How will you feast on him today?

Reflection:

 

     We stand in the midst of nourishment and we starve.  We dwell in the land of plenty, yet we persist in going hungry.  Not only do we dwell in the land of plenty; we have the capacity to be filled with the utter fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-19).  In the light of such possibility, what happens?  Why do we drag our hearts?  Lock up our souls?  Why do we limp?  Why do we straddle issues?  Why do we live feebly, so dimly?  Why aren’t we saints?

     Each of us could come up with individual answers to all these questions, but I want to suggest here a common cause.  The reason we live life so dimly and with such divided hearts is that we have never really learned how to be present with quality to God, to self, to others, to experiences and events, to all created things.  We have never learned to gather up the crumbs of whatever appears in our path at every moment.  We meet all of these lovely gifts only half there.  Presence is what we are all starving for.  Real Presence!  We are too busy to be present, too blind to see the nourishment and salvation in the crumbs of life, the experiences of each moment.  Yet the secret of daily life is this:  There are no leftovers.

     There is nothing—no thing, no person, no experience, no thought, no joy or pain—that cannot be harvested and used for nourishment on our journey to God.

     What I am suggesting here is that everything in your life is a stepping-stone to holiness if only you recognize that you do have within you the grace to be present to each moment.  Your presence is an energy that you can choose to give or not give.  Every experience, every thought, every word, every person in your life is a part of a larger picture of your growth.  That’s why I call them crumbs.  They are not the whole loaf, but they can be nourishing if you give them your real presence.  Let everything energize you.  Let everything bless you.  Even your limping can bless you. (A Tree Full of Angels by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Jesus, Thou Joy of loving hearts, Thou Fount of life, Thou Light of men,
from the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled to Thee again.  Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood; Thou savest those that on Thee call; to them that seek Thee Thou art good, to them that find Thee all in all.  We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, and long to feast upon Thee still; we drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, and thirst our souls from Thee to fill.  Our restless spirits yearn for Thee, wherever our changeful lot is cast; glad when Thy gracious smile we see, Blessed when our faith can hold Thee fast.  O Jesus, ever with us stay, make all our moments calm and bright; chase the dark night of sin away, shed over the world Thy holy light. ~St. Bernard of Clairvaux