seek first

Opening Prayer: O my God, 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 of Canterbury

Scripture: Matthew 6:31-33

Journal: What are you seeking first in your life right now?  What is the fruit of that?  What would it look like to seek God first?

Reflection: I don't know about you, but it is so easy for me to get derailed from "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness."  It takes so very little for "all these things" to creep in and begin to take control of my heart in a way that it determines the mood and direction of my life.  No wonder I worry.  I'm pretty sure the answer to this dilemma is prayer, whatever that may look like.  I must learn how to make prayer the default mode of my soul, rather than activity, effort, and anxiety.  For God is continually calling me—calling us—to seek him first.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O Lord, my God, may I (may we) seek you first this day!  Amen.

logs and specks

Opening prayer: O God, heal me and make me whole, cleanse me and make me new inside, free me from all forms of comparison, and from trying to manage others’ perceptions of me.  Make me all yours.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 7:1-6

Journal:  What are your logs these days?  How do they keep you from seeing clearly?

Reflection:

Jesus: Do you want to know why you tend to see the speck rather than the log?

Me:  I'm not sure, but I'll bet you are going to tell me anyway.

Jesus:  I certainly am.  I love you too much not to.

Me: I was afraid you were going to say that.

Jesus:  The reason you see the speck rather than the log is because of your fear and

insecurity.  You have such an overwhelming need to be right, because somehow you think that being right proves to the world that you are worth loving.  You need to have your opinion valued and respected because you're worth and value are so tied to it.  When you begin to let go of that neediness, then I can begin to do a transforming work in your soul.  It is all a part of the process of growth and change.  Seeing the log rather than the speck is the beginning of that process.  That's because seeing the log in your own eye produces humility, and humility produces compassion.  And compassion is the best indicator that you have been truly and deeply marked by my love, which allows you, in turn, to truly love others.

Me:  Thank you for loving me that much!

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to see the log rather than the speck.  Amen.

new wine

Opening Prayer: Grow your new life in me this day, O Lord, that I might be filled to overflowing with all the fullness of God.  Amen.

Scripture: Mark 2:18-22

Journal: What is your current spiritual practice?  How well does it fit what God is doing in your soul?  Where are you trying to put new wine in old wineskins?

Reflection: All too often I find that the new life God is trying to grow within me simply will not fit into the same old containers I try to put it in.  The life of the Spirit is dynamic, not static, and our practice should be the same.  Oh that is not to say that old practices aren't useful in the life of the Spirit, because they definitely are.  In fact, some of the best ancient practices have not been practiced for so long that they have a lot of new life to them.

     What Jesus seems to be saying here is that our practice should always be determined by the life and movement of the Spirit, not vice versa.  The practices of the faith (or the spiritual disciplines, or means of grace, or whatever you want to call them) are intended to make space for the Spirit to move, not to constrict or control it.  Therefore, it seems that our spiritual practice must be constantly adapted to what God is doing in our souls and in our community.  Holding on to old, lifeless, duty-filled, performance-based forms of spiritual practice (as in Mark 2:18-22) does not give the room that the new, vibrant, growing, expansive, spacious work of the Spirit requires for the current season.  And when we hold on to ritual, simply for the sake of ritual, it is like putting new wine in old wineskins.  When we are hell-bent on always having to do the same old things the same old ways, the soul actually begins to shrivel and die.  It becomes more about what we do than about what He does.  Not that these practices and rituals are always bad, there will probably be a season in the future where they will serve us well once again--or should I say where they will serve God well as he does his work within us.  Therefore, we must constantly examine our souls and our practice to try and make the best possible space within us for the Spirit of God to do his work.

     What is the state of your soul these days?  What is God's Spirit doing within you?  What is the state of your current practice?  Is it producing good fruit?  Is it making good space for the growth that is going on within you?  If not, what will make good space for the movement of God's Spirit in your heart and life?  And how will you make those things a part of your normal rhythm and practice?

     I also wonder if this parable might not contain a vocational truth as well.  I wonder if there are times when the beautiful things that God is doing and growing within us (the new wine) do not adequately match the vocation (old wineskins) we currently find ourselves in.  A new season of our soul has arrived, and God is doing a new and beautiful thing.  But this old container is not sufficient to give room to the expansive work that God desires to do.  A new container is required; one that is big enough to hold, and give room to, all that God longs to do in and through us.  Unfortunately, letting go of the old and comfortable in favor of the new and unknown takes a whole lot of faith and even more courage.  Fear keeps us trying to pour our new wine into an old skins, but it simply will not fit.

     At the very least this parable calls us to continual awareness and reflection.  Awareness of what the Spirit of God us up to, both within us and around us.  And a reflection on our current spiritual practice (or vocation) and how (or if) that practice is giving us the space our soul needs for the growth and expansive nature of this new wine.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, O God, when I try to put the new, full, vibrant life you are growing within me into the same old wineskins.  It simply won’t fit.

have mercy

Opening Prayer: Have mercy on us, O Lord, according to your unfailing love; that we might have mercy on those in our lives and in our world.  Amen.

Scripture: Mark 3:1-6

Journal: Where does accusation live within you?  What effect does it have on your heart and soul?  What would it look like to have mercy instead?

Reflection: Looking for a reason to accuse is not a healthy place from which to live life.  In fact, the spirit it produces within us is toxic.  Yet it is so easy to get drawn into that particular way of seeing, or of being, especially in this day and age.  Jesus, however, proposes another way.  Instead of looking for a reason to accuse, he wants us to look for an opportunity to show mercy.  After all, it was Jesus who said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (Matthew 5:7)  I wonder where that leaves those who criticize and accuse.

     My guess is that if I was somehow able to use the energy I normally expend on accusation and criticism in a much more positive way—on showing grace and mercy—then the world would be a much better place.  It would certainly be much more kind.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, O Lord, when my stubborn and insecure heart causes me to seek ways to accuse and criticize rather than to show mercy and grace.  For when I seek to harm rather than to love, to attack rather than to engage, to tear down rather than to build up, I have ceased to be merciful.  And thus, I have ceased to be like you.  Amen.

given, again

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you are the Bread of Life.  Help us this day to feed on you, that we may have something to offer those who come across our paths.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 10:10-17

Journal: Where, or to whom, is God calling you to give yourself?  Where and how is he saying “you give them something to eat?”  Will you?

Reflection:

Jesus: "You give them something to eat."

Me: "Again?"
(He smiles tenderly)
Jesus: "Yes again.  Have I not been faithful to feed you?  Have I not continually provided food for your soul; more than enough to sustain you?  Don't you yet realize how this works?  The food I give you is not just for you alone, it is to be given.  That is part of the dance of life, faith, and ministry: taken, blessed, broken, and given.  The food I give you is ultimately to be given away.  Once you have done that, it will return to you and take on life in you and offer you the nourishment you desperately need as well.  Somewhere along the line--most likely in the breaking--it will be multiplied, so that you have much more at the end than you did at the beginning.  That is the way of the Kingdom.  So always know that even though this continual giving of bread can be tiring at times, it is also how life flows in and through you.  So, you give them something to eat.  Yes, once again."

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Thank you Lord Jesus, that you were taken, blessed, broken, and given for us.  May we do the same for you.  Amen.

show me your ways

Opening Prayer: Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalm 25:4-5, NIV)

Scripture: Psalm 25:4-5

Journal: What is God showing you these days?  How is he leading and guiding you?  How are you growing in your ongoing conversation with him?

Reflection: But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that he speaks to us, and in our speaking (which gathers up our listening and answering) mature in the great art of conversation with God that is prayer.  The Psalms—all of which listen in order to answer—train us in the conversation. (Answering God by Eugene Peterson)

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  Show me how you work, God; School me in your ways. Take me by the hand; Lead me down the path of truth. You are my Savior, aren’t you? (Psalm 25:4-5, The Message)

planted or blown

Opening Prayer: O Lord, may I be like a tree planted by the stream, rather than like chaff that is blown by the wind.  May I meditate on you and your law in a way that gives my life the rootedness and the durability you want me to have, even in the midst of the storms.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 1:1-6

Journal:  Which one best describes your life right now: planted by the stream or blown about by the winds?  How might prayer and meditation affect that?  How has God’s word spoken into your life lately?

Reflection: Two things are prominent in Psalm 1: an action and an image.  Torah-meditation is the action; a transplanted tree is the image.

     Torah (law) is God’s words that hit the target of the human condition.  The noun torah comes from the verb, yarah, that means to throw something, a javelin, say, so that it hits its mark.  The word that hits its mark is torah.  In living speech, words are javelins hurled from one mind into another.  The javelin word goes out of one person and pierces another.  Not all words are javelins; some are only tin cans, carrying information from one place to another.  But God’s word has this aimed, intentional, personal nature.  When we are spoken to this way, piercingly and penetratingly, we are not the same.  These words get inside us and work their meaning in us.

     As we prepare to pray, to answer the words God addresses to us, we learn that all of God’s words have this characteristic: they are torah and we are target. (Answering God by Eugene Peterson)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O God, may your word pierce the target of my heart this day.  May it start a work in me that gives my life both rootedness and fruitfulness.  Amen.