story, wednesday

Wednesday, June 17

Opening Prayer: Write your blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart, there to remain, so indelibly engraved that no prosperity, no adversity, shall ever move me from your love. ~Thomas a Kempis

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:1-4

Journal: What is the letter of your life saying about Jesus these days?  Are you living a good story these days?  Why or why not?

Reflection:

     "You're writing another book about yourself?"  Jordan asked.  He was sitting at the counter in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal.  He had his laptop open and was choosing the starting lineup for his college fantasy basketball team.  He'd been playing the game for a year and finally had a division one team.  He said he was going to start his best defense, because defense wins championships.
     "I'm not writing a book.  I'm not talking about a book.  I'm talking about me.  I don't think I'm telling a good story."
     "I think you tell good stories.  Lots of people think so."
     "I tell good stories in books.  I don't live good stories."
     Jordan poured more milk in his cereal.  He was looking at me while pouring the milk.  He was squinting his eyes a little and furrowing his brow.  He stopped pouring the milk.  He kept looking at me for ten seconds or more, like he was studying me.
     "You're right," he finally said.  "You aren't living a good story."
     "That's what I was saying."
     "I see," he said.
     "What do I do about that?"
     "You're a writer.  You know what to do."
     "No, I don't."
     Jordan looked at me with his furrowed brow again.  "You put something on the page," he said.  "Your life is a blank page.  You write on it."
(A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, make me a beautiful letter from you, open and available for all to read.  Continue to write your good story within me.  For your glory.  Amen.

story, tuesday

Tuesday, June 16

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to be completely captured by the depth and wonder of what you did for me on the cross.  Help it to let me know how extravagant the love you have for me really is.  The depth of your love and your forgiveness is completely overwhelming.  Thank you.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 7:36-50

Journal: Do you feel like you have been forgiven much, or forgiven little?  What does his forgiveness do within you?  What response does it cause to rise up from within you?  Where do you find yourself in this story?  How does it speak to your own?

Reflection: The rabbis guide their people with stories; ministers usually guide with ideas and theories.  We need to become storytellers again, and so to multiply our ministry by calling around us the great witnesses who in different ways offer guidance to doubting hearts.
     One of the remarkable qualities of the story is that it creates space.  We can dwell in a story, walk around, find our own place.  The story confronts but does not oppress; the story inspires but does not manipulate.  The story invites us to an encounter, a dialog, a mutual sharing.
     A story that guides is a story that opens a door and offers space in which to search and boundaries to help us find what we seek, but it does not tell us what to do or how to do it.  The story brings us into touch with the vision and so guides us.  Elie Wiesel writes, "God made man because he loves stories."  As long as we have stories to tell to each other there is hope. (The Living Reminder by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, that you that every one of us has been forgiven much.  Therefore, help us each to love much.  In your name and for your sake.  Amen.

story, monday

Monday, June 15

Opening Prayer: O Lord, our heavenly Father, thank you that when you see us coming your direction your heart skips a beat within you.  Thank you that it brings a smile to your lips and deep joy to your heart.  Thank you that your heart is so full of love that it will not allow your feet to be still, but that you run to meet us.  And thank you that when you finally get to us, you wrap your arms of affection around us, embrace with your love, and kiss us.  If we ever doubt the way that you feel about us, we need to look no further than this picture.  Thank you that you love us so much.  In the name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 15:11-32

Journal: Where do you see yourself in this story?  What is God trying to say to you about your own story?  About the story he is longing to write in you?  What is he trying to say to you about his immense affection for you?

Reflection:

     Of the six million species on the planet, only man makes language.  Words.  What’s more—in evidence of the Divine—we string these symbols together and then write them down, where they take on a life of their own and breathe outside of us.  Story is the bandage of the broken.  Sutures of the shattered.  The tapestry upon which we write our lives.  Upon which we lay the bodies of the dying and the about-to-come-to-life.  And if it's honest, true, hiding nothing, revealing all, then it is a raging river and those who ride it find they have something to give—that they are not yet empty.
     Critics cry foul, claiming the tongue is a bloody butcher that blasphemes, slices, slanders, and damns—leaving scars, carnage, the broken the beaten.  Admittedly, story is a double-edged scimitar, but the fault lies not in the word but in the hand that wields the pen.  Not all stories spew, cower, and retreat.  Some storm the castle.  Rush in.  Stand between.  Wrap their arms around.  Spill secrets.  Share their shame.  Return.  Stories birth our dreams and feed the one thing that never dies. (Unwritten by Charles Martin)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: I am sure that there is in me nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as pure as You are.  Yet You have declared Your unchanging love for me in Christ Jesus.  If nothing in me can win Your love, nothing in the universe can prevent You from loving me.  Your love is uncaused and undeserved.  You are Yourself the reason for the love wherewith I am loved.  Help me to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found me.  Then love will cast out fear; and my troubled heart will be at peace. Trusting not in what I am but in what You have declared Yourself to be.  Amen. (The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)

story, sunday

Sunday, June 14

Opening Prayer: O Jesus, speak to me during this time about the story you are telling, the story I was made for.  Open my eyes, Lord, to the ways that story is being told—and lived—in the events and circumstances of this day.  Show me how all that happens to me this day echoes your larger Story if only I will keep my heart focused on you.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Scripture: Galatians 1:11-24

Journal: How is God calling you into his larger story today?  How is God revealing his Son to you, or in you, these days?  Why do you think Paul went into Arabia?  How might God be calling you to do the same?  What do you think it was like when Paul and Peter finally got together?  What stories can you imagine them telling each other?

Reflection:

 

Immediately after my calling—without consulting anyone around me and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were apostles long before I was—I got away to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus, but it was three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories with Peter. (Galatians 1:16-18, The Message)

     I love that the first thing Paul and Peter did when they got together, for the very first time, was tell stories.  Can you imagine being a fly on the wall?  There is something about the telling of our stories (or of God’s story in us) that is very rich and life giving; it’s almost like the stories must be told in order to have their fully desired effect in our hearts and lives and souls.  And the funny thing is that I’m not sure who they have the bigger impact on, the hearer or the teller. 

     Obviously there is something wonderful about hearing stories of how God grabbed someone’s heart or made someone whole; but there is also this strange and wonderful dynamic that takes place in the heart of the teller even as the story is being told.  It is as if somehow it is continuing to move and to grow in his heart and soul even as he shares what he has seen or heard.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  It’s those times when you are in the middle of telling some incredible story of God’s Spirit and God’s work, and you actually begin to hear what you are saying—and be completely captured by it.  It is almost as if you didn’t completely realize what all was going on until you began to tell it, and as you opened your mouth it is almost as if the story began telling itself and was just using your mouth as its vehicle. 

     After all, it is not your story, or even mine (or theirs for that matter), but the story of God.  It is His, and something about its quality tells us that.  Somehow if the story was only about me, or about you, it wouldn’t carry the same weight, it wouldn’t have the same impact.  It would fall lifeless to the ground and die—so many of my stories have suffered that fate through the years simply because I didn’t yet understand that the story wasn’t about me, but about Him.  Stories about Him have life, they live on and produce their fruit long after their telling.  And it is a beautiful thing.

Prayers

Closing prayer: Father, write yourself upon my heart and life—that I may be an open book about you, so that others might read of your unending love on every page.  In the name of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.  Amen.

hard, saturday

Saturday, June 13

Opening Prayer: O Lord, help us to not lose heart when times get hard, but instead help us to cling tightly to you.  By your Spirit guard us, protect us, and renew us.  Help us to realize that these light and momentary struggles are achieving for us and eternal weight of glory that is beyond all comparison.  Help us, O Lord, when things look bleak, to always keep our eyes firmly fixed on you—the unseen God—rather than on the visible circumstances around us.  In the name and power of Jesus we pray.  Amen. 

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Journal: In what ways are you most tempted to lose heart these days?  What is the usual cause?  How do you feel like your “outer self” is wasting away?  How is your “inner self” being renewed day by day?  What does it specifically mean for you, this week, to fix your eyes on the unseen rather than what is seen?

Reflection: Long you must suffer, knowing not what, until suddenly out of spitefully chewed fruit your suffering's taste comes forth in you.  Then you will love almost instantly what's tasted. No one will ever talk you out of it. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Prayers

Closing Prayer: So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, The Message)

hard, friday

Friday, June 12

Opening Prayer:  O Lord God Almighty, only in your economy would it be possible for something to be hard, yet good.  As a matter of fact, you often use the hardest things of this life to teach us the deepest truths about your character, your sovereignty, and your love.  Help us to hold always to the hope that with you there is always good to be found somewhere, even in the midst of the hard.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 119:71-72

Journal: What things in your life right now are hard, but good?  How are they hard?  How are they good?  What good fruit are they producing in you?

Reflection:

 

     “I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.  Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts?  Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”  
     “Ooh!” said Susan.  “I’d thought he was a man.  Is he – quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”  
     “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”  
     “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.  
     “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe?  Of Course he isn’t safe.  But he is good.  He’s the King, I tell you.” (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on me.  Help, O God, my unbelief.  Heal, O Lord, my wounded soul.  Raise me up from sin and death.  Recover for me, O Lover of Mankind, exceeding joy in pleasing You, my God.  Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on me.  Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.  Amen. ~Scott Cairns (from God for Us)

hard, thursday

Thursday, June 11

Opening Prayer: O ever present God, strengthen my will, that I may become increasingly watchful, alert to all that would impede my knowing, ever, how near you are.  O most near God, teach me to pray, enable me to lean into your presence, and to keep my mind and heart attached to you.  For you are the source of life and health, the hope of all who pass through affliction.  Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  Amen. ~Scott Cairns (from God for Us)

Scripture: Romans 5:3-5

Journal: What is suffering producing in you these days?  What have the greatest times of pain produced in you throughout your lifetime?

Reflection:

 

     Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Prayers

Closing Prayer:

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

~Rainer Maria Rilke