the god of peace

Opening Prayer: Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

    Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:4-7, The Message)

Scripture: Philippians 4:4-11

Journal: Where in your life are you experiencing the peace of God?  Where in your life are you experiencing the God of peace?  What is the difference?  How does prayer enter into that?

Reflection: When we give our anxieties to God in prayer, we know the peace of God.  And when we meditate on the beauty and wonder and excellence of God, we know the God of peace.  Knowing the God of peace, it would seem, can lead us to knowing the peace of God.  And we get to know the God of peace by fixing our hearts and souls and minds—and prayers—on him.  When we focus on God, and the character and nature of God, rather than on our own anxieties, it does something really good within us.  It makes us the best version of ourselves.  It allows us to live and love in trust and freedom, rather than scrambling and controlling and grasping and jockeying.  Christ becomes the center of our universe, not our worries. 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. (Philippians 4:8-9, The Message)

listen

Opening Prayer: Lord, teach me to listen.  The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them.  Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, “Speak, for thy servant heareth.”  Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart.  Let me get used to the sound of Thy voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking voice.  Amen.  (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-3

Journal: How are you making space in your life to listen to God?  How is that going?  How do you listen?

Reflection: Listening means being released from willfulness, arrogance, and self-assertiveness.  It calls for respectful presence to the mystery we are meditating, for humble openness to its meaning.  Such listening or apprehending is prior to our appraisal of these meanings and our decision to incorporate them into our spiritual development, should God give us the grace for this growth. . . .  Listening is only possible to the degree that we let go of the grip of our egotistic will and become inwardly and outwardly silent, alert, receptive, attentive.  Then we may be able to think clearly or meditate; it becomes possible to reflect on our lives as a whole or on a text we are reading.  What we hear sinks from our minds into our hearts.  Ideas are not exploited to serve our purposes but to direct us to deeper wisdom, to a revelation of persons, events, and things as they are in themselves.  We become the servants rather than the masters of the world. (Pathways of Spiritual Living by Susan Annette Muto) 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Speak, O Lord, as we come to You, to receive the food of Your holy word.  Take Your truth, plant it deep in us; shape and fashion us in Your likeness, that the light of Christ might be seen today, in our acts of love and our deeds of faith.  Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us all your purposes, for Your glory. (Speak O Lord by Stuart Townend, Keith Getty)

a gentle interiority

Opening Prayer: Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, “Oh, thank you, God!” I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other believers. And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it. Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers.  (Philemon v. 4-7, The Message)

Scripture: Philemon (v. 4-7)

Journal: What is the state of your inner space right now?  What effect is it having on those around you?  On your prayers?

Reflection: Today I imagined my inner self as a place crowded with pins and needles.  How could I receive anyone in my prayer when there is no real place for them to be free and relaxed?  When I am still so full of preoccupations, jealousies, angry feelings, anyone who enters will get hurt.  I had a very vivid realization that I must create some free space in my innermost self so that I may indeed invite others to enter and be healed.  To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable space where I can really listen to their needs and pains.  Compassion, therefore, calls for a self-scrutiny that can lead to inner gentleness.

    If I could have a gentle “interiority”—a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone, a room with some spots on which one might walk barefooted—then God and my fellow humans could meet each other there.  Then the center of my heart can become the place where God can hear the prayer for my neighbors and embrace them with his love. (The Genesee Diary by Henri J. M. Nouwen) 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. (Philemon v. 4-7, ESV)

return to me

Opening Prayer: O Lord, our God, forgive us from turning away from your love and chasing less wild lovers who can never satisfy the deepest longings of our souls.  Help us, O Lord, to return to you, our one true love.  Amen.

Scripture: Jeremiah 3:1-14

Journal: Who, or what, is God’s main competition for your love and affection these days?  What does it look like to return to him as your one true love?

Reflection:

     return

you have scattered 

your favors to foreign 

gods under every 

spreading tree…

return, faithless people,

for I am your husband.

(Jer. 3:13-14)

o my bride

my church

i am your God

your husband

your lover  

i made you for myself

that i might give myself to you

that you might live with me

in a sacred romance

in union and intimacy 

beyond your wildest dreams

but you have turned away

you have given

the most intimate 

parts of yourself

to other lovers

you have given your

attention and affection

to foreign gods

that do not love you

the way i do

you have scattered

your favors to them

under every green tree

o my love 

my bride

what shall i do with you

you have broken my heart

how i long to be 

the focus of all your love

the object of 

your deepest affections

how i long for you

to return to our bed

that i might show 

my love to you once again.

but i will not share you

with another

i will not compete

for your love

you must leave

your other lovers

and return to me

return to me

my love

my bride

for i am 

your one true love

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O God, you are our lover, our husband, our God.  Help us to love you before all else in our lives.  For anyone or anything that comes before you is an idol.  Lord, have mercy.  Amen.

a new dance

Opening Prayer: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
     If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.(Psalm 139:7-12)

Scripture: Psalm 139:7-12

Journal: What is your experience of God's presence these days?  What do you think his intent is in that?  Do you really believe he is with you even when you can't feel it?  How might God be teaching you to dance with him in a new way?

Reflection: There is nowhere that God is not.  Therefore, when we do not have a sense of his presence, we cannot just assume that he is absent.  Actually, quite the opposite is true.  For even when we cannot perceive him, he is still there--in the heavens, in the depths, on the far side of the sea, and even in the deepest darkness.  We just need to truly believe that.
     Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote: "What is decisive is not the mystic experience of our being close to him; decisive is not our 'feeling' but our 'certainty' of his being close to us--although even his presence is veiled and beyond the scope of our emotion.  Decisive is not our emotion but our 'conviction.'"  God is always present, but sometimes we simply cannot perceive him.  Our perception, however, is not reality.
     Most of the time when we go through periods where we cannot sense God's presence, it is because God is inviting us to experience him in a brand new way.  The season of disorientation (in this case, the absence of God's perceived presence) has as it's goal a reorientation, a new way of being and seeing.  Unfortunately, in times such as these we usually try to cling to some old and familiar way of relating to God rather than opening ourselves up to the new and the unknown.  The problem is that this old way of relating--this old orientation--is dead and gone, and a new one must be arrived at.
     It is like God is inviting us to learn to dance with him in a new and different way, but we keep reverting back to our old and familiar ways rather than being open and willing to learn a new dance.  This often leads to frustration, and even feelings of abandonment.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  God has not abandoned us.  In fact, he is actually trying to lead us into new levels of intimacy with him that we have only dreamt about.  But in order to do this, we must learn to let go of the old.  We must be willing to trust in him and to follow his lead the best way we know how.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: My God and Father, Lord of the dance, allow me to see this day and this moment for what it really is—an invitation to dance the dance of life and faith with the One who made me.  May I dance this day with joy and passion, knowing that there will never be another one just like it.  In the name of Jesus I Pray.  Amen.

fruit

Opening Prayer: Jesus, help me to learn what it means to truly abide in you every second of the day.  For then, and only then will I live the fruitful life you created for me.  You are the vine, Lord Jesus, and I am just a branch.  Help me never to forget that.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Scripture: John 15:4-5

Journal: How have you been trying to manage your life these days?  Where have you been abiding?  What would it mean for you to abide in Jesus?

Reflection: The ability to hear what God is saying, to see what God is doing, and to move in the realm of the miraculous comes as an individual develops the same intimacy with and dependence upon the Father. How did Jesus do what He did? The answer is found in His relationship with the Father. How will we do the “greater works than these” which Jesus promised? By discovering the same relationship of intimacy, simplicity, and obedience. ~John Wimber

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Intimacy, simplicity, and obedience; help these qualities to mark my life with you, today and every day.  Amen.

confess

Opening Prayer: Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.

     When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

     Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32:1-5, NIV)

Scripture: Psalm 32:1-5

Journal: What stirs within you as you read this Psalm?  What is disturbed within you?  What do you do with that?  What might you need to acknowledge, uncover, or confess?  Will you?  The life of your soul depends upon it.  

Reflection: Misunderstanding, then, on this point of known or conscious sin, opens the way for great dangers in the higher Christian life.  When a believer, who has as he trusts entered upon the highway of holiness, finds himself surprised into sin, he is tempted either to be utterly discouraged, and to give everything up as lost; or else, in order to preserve the doctrine untouched, he feels it necessary to cover his sin up, calling it infirmity, and refusing to be honest and aboveboard about it.  Either of these courses is equally fatal to any real growth and progress in the life of holiness.  The only way is to face the sad fact at once, call the thing by its right name, and discover, if possible, the reason and the remedy.  This life of union with God requires the utmost honesty with Him and with ourselves.  The blessing which the sin itself would only momentarily disturb, is sure to be lost by any dishonest dealing with it.  A sudden failure is no reason for being discouraged and giving up all as lost.  Neither is the integrity of our doctrine touched by it.  We are not preaching a state, but a walk.  The highway of holiness is not a place, but a way. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith) 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—you get a fresh start, your slate’s wiped clean. Count yourself lucky—God holds nothing against you and you’re holding nothing back from him.

     When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.

     Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. (Psalm 32:1-5, The Message)