calling, day 7

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

 Opening Prayer:Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: 1 Samuel 3:1-11

Reading for Reflection:

When we are younger and are wrestling with choices about the future, we are very often asked, and ask ourselves:  “What are you going to do when you grow up?”  It is the wrong question.  What we are going to do is not who we are.

     When it was time for me to make choices, I should have been wrestling with another question.  I should have been asking, “Who am I going to be when I grow up?”  What I then went on to do with that should have been a reflection of who I was to be, a reflection of the word that was whispered into me.  I should have been looking for work to do that would sustain and nurture who I am (who I be, if you will).  I was then, and am still, the only person on earth who has any clue at all what was whispered into me in the depths of my mother’s womb.  Everyone else is just guessing, and their guesses are a lot less well informed than mine.  God whispered the word Robert into me, and no one else.  If I can not hear that word, no one can.  If I do not hear that word, no one will.  If I do hear it and fail to act upon it, no one will be the word called Robert that God spoke.  (Between the Dreaming and the Coming True by Robert Benson)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 6

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Acts 9:1-31

Reading for Reflection:

But how is one to find his true place in life?  Is there any means whereby you may discover what it really is that God wishes you to do?  You may feel inclined to say:  “Even if it be true that God has some splendid thing that he wishes for me to do, and to be, how can I possibly find out what it is?”  Perhaps you may even be tempted to add: “I am very plain, everyday sort of person; my circumstances are extremely restricted; the conditions of my life are just drab and commonplace.  How then can there be something wonderful, beautiful, splendid awaiting me?  Or, even if there were, how could I possibly get to know about it?”  And the answer is Divinely simple—already in your past life from time to time, God himself has whispered into your heart just that very wonderful thing, whatever it is, that he is wishing you to be, and to do, and to have.  And that wonderful thing is nothing less than what is called Your Heart’s Desire.  Nothing less than that.  The most secret, sacred wish that lies deep down at the bottom of your heart, the wonderful thing that you hardly dare to look at, or to think about—the thing that you would rather die than have anyone else know of, because it seems so far beyond anything that you are, or have at the present time, that you fear that you would be cruelly ridiculed if the mere thought of it were known—that is just the very thing that God is wishing you to do or to be for him.  And the birth of that marvelous wish in your soul—the dawning of the secret dream—was the Voice of God himself telling you to arise and come up higher because he had need of you.  (Your Heart’s Desire by Emmet Fox)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 5

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Luke 5:27-32

Reading for Reflection:
 
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
(The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke)


Vocare, to call, of course, and a man’s vocation is a man’s calling.  It is the work that he is called to in this world, the thing that he is summoned to spend his life doing.  We can speak of a man’s choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation’s choosing the man, of a call’s being given and a man’s hearing it.  And maybe that is the place to start:  the business of listening and hearing.  A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directions.  Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside.  The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are.  Which do we listen to?  What kind of voice do we listen for?  (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 4

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Jeremiah 1:1-19

Reading for Reflection:

     We skip down the hallways of our youth, you and I, stopping now and then to catch our breath.  And every now and then we catch something else.  A glimpse of the future.  Our future.  A glimpse we caught when we came across a window suddenly flung open in front of us, its gossamer curtains lifted by the breeze redolent with the future, filling our lungs with refreshing air and our heart with hopeful dreams.

     At that window we hear something like somebody calling our name, only in a language we can’t quite understand, so we don’t recognize who it is who is calling us or to where we are being called.

     But we recognize the name.

     Even in a foreign language, names translate closely to the original.  Whoever it is calling us is calling us by our true name.  Whispering to us a secret.  Telling us who we are.  And showing us what we will be doing with our lives if only we have eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the faith to follow.  (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.  (The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Luke 19:1-10

Reading for Reflection:

I wish that I might emphasize how a life becomes simplified when dominated by faithfulness to a few concerns.  Too many of us have too many irons in the fire.  We get distracted by the intellectual claim to our interest in a thousand and one good things, and before we know it we are pulled and hauled breathlessly along by an over-burdened program of good committees and good undertakings.  I am persuaded that this fevered life of church workers is not wholesome.  Undertakings get plastered on from the outside because we can't turn down a friend.  Acceptance of service on a weighty committee should really depend upon an answering imperative within us, not merely upon a rational calculation of the factors involved.  The concern-oriented life is ordered and organized from within.  And we learn to say "No" as well as "Yes" by attending to the guidance of inner responsibility.  Inner simplicity needs to be expressed not merely in dress and architecture and the height of tombstones, but also in the structure of a relatively simplified and coordinated life-program of ministry responsibilities.  And I am persuaded that concerns introduce that simplification, and along with it that intensification which we need in opposition to the hurried, superficial tendencies of our age.  (A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: Luke 5:1-11

Reading for Reflection:

Maybe that means that the voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness.  What can we do that makes us gladdest, what can we do that leaves us with a strong sense of sailing true north and of peace, which is much of what gladness is?  Is it making things with our hands out of wood or stone or paint on canvas?  Or is it making something we hope like truth out of words?  Or is it making people laugh or weep in a way that cleanses their spirit?  I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good thing and it is our thing and it is the calling voice that we were made to answer with our lives.  (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)

calling, day 1

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

Opening Prayer:
Help me, Oh God, to listen to what it is that makes my heart glad and to follow where it leads.  May joy, not guilt, Your voice, not others, Your will, not my willfulness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation.  Help me to unearth the passions of my heart that lie buried in my youth.  And can help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.  Amen. (Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 25

Scripture for the Day: John 1:35-51

Reading for Reflection: 

Your unique presence in your community is the way God wants you to be present to others.  Different people have different ways of being present.  You have to know and claim your way.  That is why discernment is so important.  Once you have an inner knowledge of your true vocation, you have a point of true orientation.  That will help you decide what to do and what to let go of, what to say and what to remain silent about, when to go out and when to stay home, who to be with and who to avoid.

     When you get exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, or run down, your body is saying that you are doing things that are none of your business.  God does not require of you what is beyond your ability, what leads you away from God, or what makes you depressed or sad.  God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well.  Doing so might include suffering, fatigue, and even moments of great physical or emotional pain, but none of this must ever pull you away from your deepest calling and God.  (The Inner Voice of Love by Henri J.M. Nouwen)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

 

Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.

 

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er Jesus,
Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

 

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty,
Cling to gilded toys of dust,
Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure;
Only Jesus will I trust.

 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside;
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!
Jesus, glorious King of kings,
Deigns to call me His beloved,
Lets me rest beneath His wings.
(Repeat chorus)

 

Closing Prayer:
Go forth as God’s servant.  Remember God’s presence often and draw strength from the knowledge that the One who calls and sends also sustains.  Amen.  (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben Job)