return, sunday

Sunday, February 7

Opening Prayer: O Lord, you have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence we shall be strengthened: By your Spirit lift us to Your presence, where we may be still and know that You are God. ~from The Prayer of Quiet Confidence

Scripture: Isaiah 30:15

Journal: How do the words of Isaiah speak to your life or heart today?  Will you embrace them or resist them?  What would it look like to embrace these words of Scripture today?

Reflection:

 

     Years ago a good friend of mine—seeing the busyness and chaos of my life—asked me if I was a human doing or a human being.  “Because I have a suspicion,” he said, “that you were created to be a human being.”  And of course he was right.  Why is it so easy to lose our way in this world, and begin to think that our value and our worth are determined by what we do, rather than by who we are—or rather whose we are?  It is such an easy trap to fall into, which is probably why God felt it necessary to remind us—in these verses in Isaiah—that our salvation and our worth is not dependent on what we do, or on how well we do it.  It is not dependent on how well we perform, what we achieve, or who thinks we’re wonderful.  It is dependent solely on God’s great love and mercy.  Once we remember that truth, and really believe it, then, and only then, do we have a real possibility of moving from human doing to human being.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, please turn me from a human doing back into a human being.  For then I will be what you intended for me to be.  Amen.

serve, saturday

Saturday, February 6

Opening Prayer: Loving Father, teach me to love and care for those that need you today.  Those who are passed over and do not feel love unless I love them for you.  May Christ's love for others be felt through me today.  In your name and by your power I pray these things.  Amen. (Disciplines for the Inner Life by Bob Benson)

Scripture: Luke 4:16-21

Journal: What is your response to the Scriptures today?  What is God saying to you?  What is God asking of you?  What is God calling you to?

Reflection:

     Ministry is service in the name of the Lord.  It is bringing the good news to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives and new sight to the blind, setting the downtrodden free and announcing the Lord’s year of favor (Luke 4:18).  Spirituality is attention to the life of the Spirit in us; it is going out to the desert or up to the mountain to pray; it is standing before the Lord with open heart and open mind; it is crying out, “Abba, Father”; it is contemplating the unspeakable beauty of our loving God.

     We have fallen into the temptation of separating ministry from spirituality, service from prayer.  Our demon says: “we are too busy to pray; we have too many needs to attend to, too many people to respond to, too many wounds to heal.  Prayer is a luxury, something to do during a free hour, a day away from work or on retreat.  The few who are exclusively concerned with prayer—such as Trappists, Poor Clares, and some isolated hermits—are really not involved in ministry.  They are set free for single-minded contemplation and leave Christian service to others.” But to think this way is harmful; harmful for ministers as well as for contemplatives.  Service and prayer can never be separated. (Living Reminder by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Prayer

Closing Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

     Help me to realize the many voices of hunger, the many sounds of thirst, the many cries of loneliness, the many callings of sickness and nakedness and imprisonment.  Help me to hear in all of them something of You calling to me to become more than I am.  More understanding.  More compassionate.  More involved.  More like You. (Reflections on the Word by Ken Gire)

serve, friday

Friday, February 5

Opening Prayer: Thank you, O God, for meeting me here in ways far beyond my knowing.  I thank you for working in me in ways far deeper than my awareness.  I thank you for your love.  It enfolds me even when I am most resistant to your presence.  I thank you for your grace.  It offers yourself to me even when my back is turned.  I thank you, as I come to you this day, for the infinite variety of your creative power in my life.  I thank you for the infinite diversity that you have crafted into me.  It makes me a unique person.  As I think upon this, I pray that you will enable me to be truly thankful for the creation gifts you have given me.  Enable me to offer myself to you in them for the work you want to do in me and through me in my life and in the world. (Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland)

Scripture: John 21:15-19

Journal: How is Jesus calling you to give your life away in loving service to him?

Reflection:

 

     Do you ever wonder what all Jesus was trying to teach Simon Peter as they walked together on the beach only days after the resurrection?  Of course He was offering him a beautiful restoration, giving him three opportunities to profess his love after the three denials only days before.  And of course He was trying to teach Peter that the most important question in all of the spiritual life is "Do you truly love me more than these?"  Whatever our these may be.  And of course He was trying to show Peter that in the days and weeks—and even years—ahead that undying, passionate love for Jesus is the only way to truly feed the sheep without feeding on the sheep. 

     But I also wonder if one of the main things He was really trying to teach Peter was that until our lives are ordered and determined by Jesus' love and His kingdom, then we really aren't following Him at all, but only following ourselves.  I think that's why He makes that disturbing statement in verses 18-19.  Almost as if to say, Okay, okay, when you were younger you called your own shots and determined your own agenda.  But when you get older, when your life of faith grows and matures, you must put yourself completely under my control.  That's what this life of faith is really all about.  You must stretch out your empty hands and let me do all the leading.  You must operate by my plans and my agenda.  I must be the one that determines how and where you spend your days, even if it means going to places that you'd rather not go.  That's what following me really looks like.  There is a shift that must take place deep within you; a shift from leading to being led.  First you are led (by Me) and then, and only then, you lead.  True service always involves following before it involves leading. 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton)

serve, thursday

Thursday, February 4

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to see that the bottom line of this amazing life we have been called to here on earth is not to serve ourselves, to win friends, or to influence people, but to serve you—regardless of the cost.  Help us to have the strength and the courage to do that today.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 6:20-26

Journal: What do the list of Blessings do within you today?  What about the list of Woes?  Where is God speaking to you today in these verses?  What is he saying?

Reflection:

 

Real training for service asks for a hard and often painful process of self-emptying.  The main problem of service is to be the way without being “in the way.”  And if there are any tools, techniques and skills to be learned they are primarily to plow the field, to cut the weeds and to clip the branches, that it, to take away the obstacles for real growth and development.  Training for service is not a training to become rich but to become voluntarily poor; not to fulfill ourselves but to empty ourselves; not to conquer God but to surrender to his saving power. (Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Almighty God, who sent Jesus to suffer and die for our sake, help us to count the cost of genuine service and by your grace to follow through suffering to joy and through death to resurrection.  Through Christ our Lord, we pray.  Amen. (A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck)

serve, wednesday

Wednesday, February 3

Opening Prayer: O God of peoples, nations and history; you who became incarnate in the midst of economic, social and political injustice; you who call us to incarnate the reality of your kingdom in the midst of the world’s destructive values, structures and dynamics; we confess that we would much rather limit our relationship with you to the comfortable confines of our own insulated world.  We are prone to withdraw and create islands of security within which we can live in some degree of peace and comfort without having to see the pain and anguish of the world outside.  We are tempted to limit our spirituality to the narrow boundaries of our self-circumscribed world.  O God of justice and mercy, help us to see that to be conformed to the image of Christ is to be thrust out into the world as agents of your redeeming, healing, liberating, transforming grace.  Help us to see that our growth toward wholeness in Christ cannot move toward its fruition apart from our life in the world.  Guide us in our consideration of this reality and help us to be open and responsive to what you are saying to us. (Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland)

Scripture: Mark 10:35-45

Journal: What do the verses today do within you?  Where do they cause to come alive?  And where do they disturb or disrupt you?  What are the words of Mark 10 calling you to today? 

Reflection:

 

A Christian leader is not a leader because he announced a new idea and tries to convince others of its worth; he is a leader because he faces the world with eyes full of expectation, with the expertise to take away the veil that covers its hidden potential.  Christian leadership is called ministry precisely to express that in the service of others new life can be brought about.  It is this service which gives eyes to see the flower breaking through the cracks in the street, ears to hear a word of forgiveness muted by hatred and hostility, and hands to feel new life under the cover of death and destruction. ~Henri Nouwen

 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: God of our creation and re-creation, you who are constantly at work to shape me in the wholeness of Christ, you know the hardness of the structures of my being that resist your shaping touch.  You know the deep inner rigidities of my being that reject your changing grace.  By your grace soften my hardness and rigidity; help me to become pliable in your hands.  Even as I pray this, may there be a melting of my innate resistance to your transforming love.  Amen. (Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.)

serve, tuesday

Tuesday, February 2

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us when our ambition is to become greatest, first, or best; for when we strive after those things we have ceased striving after you.  You call us to a much different life, to a much more noble ambition.  You call us to become lowest, least, and last.  Help us to see that your values are much different from that of the world we live in.  And help us to follow you.  Amen.

Scripture: Mark 9:33-37

Journal: Where in your life are you trying to become the greatest?  What would it mean to try to become the least?  What does that look like?  How will you be servant of all today?

Reflection:

 

     I've been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual value of being last, and how it creates some of the most fertile soil possible for the life of God's Spirit to grow within us.  It is the soil of humility, and dependence, and trust.  In fact, it is soil that is so fertile that fruit just seems to spring abundantly into being from within it.  So much so that it is a wonder I still resist it at almost every turn. Why is that?  It would seem that, because of its fecundity, I would want to dwell in the soil of last as often and as long as possible; but of course the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, my default mode is to run away from it rather than embrace it; even though the chief fruit of being last is something that my heart most deeply desires—freedom. Freedom grows abundantly in the soil of being last, if we are willing to take up its invitation to do a wonderful work within us, rather than allow it to be a source of angst, or insecurity, or fear, or competition.  Being last, when embraced, brings about freedom; both freedom from and freedom to. Freedom from having to prove myself. Freedom from trying to make a name for myself. Freedom from jockeying for position. Freedom from having to matter. Freedom from having to be the point. Which results in freedom to love God. Freedom to belong only to Him. Freedom to serve Him completely. Freedom to genuinely love people without needing anything from them in return. So not only does being last produce significant fruit within me, it also is incredibly fruitful for the Kingdom.  Therefore, maybe being last is not something to simply embrace, but something to actually pursue.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, you have told us that in order to become great in your Kingdom, we must become servant of all.  Help us to do that today.  Amen.

serve, monday

Monday, February 1

Opening Prayer: Our Father, here I am, at your disposal, your child, to use me to continue your loving the world, by giving Jesus to me and through me, to each other and the world.  Let us pray for each other as we allow Jesus to love in us and through us with the love with which His Father loves him. (Seeking the Heart of God by Mother Teresa)

Scripture: Luke 22:24-27

Journal: Where do you find yourself in these verses?  What would it look like for you to follow Jesus’ example of servanthood?

Reflection:

 

    It is a particularization of my responsibility also, in a world too vast and a lifetime too short for me to carry all responsibilities.  My cosmic love, or the Divine Lover loving within me, cannot accomplish its full intent within the limits of three score years and ten.  But the Loving Presence does not burden us equally with all things, but considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks, as emphatic responsibilities.  For each of these special undertakings are our share in the joyous burdens of love.

     Thus the state of having a concern has a foreground and a background.  In the foreground is the special task, uniquely illuminated, toward which we feel a special yearning and care.  This is the concern as we usually talk about it or present it to the Monthly Meeting.  But in the background is a second level, or layer, of universal concern for all the multitude of good things that need doing.  Toward them all we feel kindly, but we are dismissed from active service in most of them.  And we have an easy mind in the presence of desperately real needs which are not our direct responsibility.  We cannot die on every cross, nor are we expected to. (A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly)    

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to have your heart and your mind when it comes to serving.  Guide and direct us.  Help us to gladly take the lowest place and gladly serve those you have called us to serve.  But help us also to never see ourselves as the answer to anyone’s need; only you can be that.  Amen.