given.

"you are more than dust and bones.
you are spirit and power and image of God.
and you have been given today."

-shauna niequist.

listen.

"Be kind enough to others to listen, beneath all the words they speak, for that usually unspoken hunger for holiness that i believe is part of even the unlikeliest of us, because by listening to it and cherishing it maybe we can help bring it to birth in them and in ourselves."

-frederick buechner.

אמת

"we make ourselves real by telling the truth."

-thomas merton.

advance.

"is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done, to have advanced true friends?"

try.

"it is not complicated to live a spiritual life, but it is difficult. we are blind, and subject to a thousand illusions. we must expect to be making mistakes almost all the time. we must be content to fall repeatedly and to begin again to try to deny ourselves, for the love of God.

it is when we are angry at own mistakes that we tend most of all to deny ourselves for love of ourselves. we want to shake off the hateful thing that has humbled us. in our rush to escape the humiliation of our mistakes, we run head first into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation. and so we spend our lives running back and forth from one attachment to another.

if that is all our self-denial amounts to, our mistakes will never help us.

the thing to do when you have made a mistake is not to give up what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well."

-thomas merton.

Yes. (and amen).

"for no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'yes' in Christ. and so through him the 'amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God."

-2 Corinthians.

יַחֵל

"the L-RD delights in those who fear Him,
who wait their wait in His unfailing love."

-psalm 147.

yet they remained.

"the history of abraham's people is, of course, one of unfaithfulness as well as faithfulness, yet they remained faithful enough so that they might be truthful about their unfaithfulness."

-hauerwas.

----

sometimes i feel the only good and valuable thing i have to offer is my honesty, my vulnerability, my truth.

and perhaps that is enough.

perhaps.

turning.

"and then I turned again to that other world I had taught myself to know, the world that is neither past nor to come, the present world where we are alive together and love keeps us."

-wendell berry.

portion.

"Only this, I have found, is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days of his life that God has given him; for that is his portion.

Also, whenever a man is given riches and property by God, and is also permitted by Him to enjoy them and to take his portion and get pleasure for his gains - that is a gift of God. For such a man will not brood much over the days of his life, because God keeps him busy enjoying himself."

-ecclesiastes 5.

partnership.

"We must remember that God is involved in our doings, that meaning is given not only in the timeless but primarily in the timely, in that task given here and now. Great are man's possibilities."

-abraham joshua heschel.

the Lord is my portion.

Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed.
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning.

great is Your faithfulness.

I say to myself, "the Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him."

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him.
to the one who seeks Him;

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

-lamentations 3.

the gift of aloneness.

"How do I deal with my aloneness? Many people deal with it through loneliness. That means you experience your aloneness as a wound, as something that hurts you, that makes you cry out, 'Is there anyone who can help me?'

But as Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness into solitude. We are called to experience our aloneness not as a wound but as a gift - as God's gift - so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God.

It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us. That is where we experience God as the divine, loving Father, who knows us better than we know ourselves.

If we accept our aloneness as a gift from God, and convert it into deep solitude, then out of that solitude we can reach out to other people. We can come together in community, because we don't cling to one another out of loneliness. We don't use or manipulate one another. Rather, we bow to one another's solitude. We recognize one another as people who are called by the same God.

If I find God in my solitude, and you find God in your solitude, then the same God calls us together, and we can become friends. We can form a community, we can be together without destroying each other by clinging to each other."

-henri nouwen, a quality of heart.

perspective.

my prayers have started to evolve a bit in recent weeks.

instead of asking,

Lord, show me what to do in this situation,

I pray instead,

Lord, show me WHO YOU ARE in this situation.


my ultimate priority in this life is not to perform, succeed, accomplish, or attain -

it is to know the Father.

-----

Lord, show us Your heart.

attentive listeners.

“what is important is not that God is a spectator and participant in our life today, but that we are attentive listeners and participants in God’s action in the sacred story, the story of Jesus on earth.”

-dietrich bonhoeffer.

Name.

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." -exodus 20:7.

-----

"Through His names and titles, God has chosen to reveal His attributes, office, authority, prerogatives, and will.

Each name of God features some distinct virtue or characteristic of His nature. Thus, God has declared the glory of His nature by His names, which are not to be abused.

It is this commandment more than any other that shows how much God should be a part of our every word, deed and attitude.

It shows that the test of our spiritual cleanliness is how we use the name of God, whether in truth or vanity.

It indicates that a man is better off being sincerely wrong than to be a professing Christian and deny His name by the conduct of his life."

- john ritenbaugh.

I will.

I cried out to God for help;

I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;

at night I stretched out untiring hands

and my soul refused to comforted.

.

I remembered you, Oh God, and I

groaned;

I mused, and my spirit

grew faint.

You kept my eyes from closing;

I was too troubled to speak.

I thought about the former days,

the years of long ago;

I remembered my song in the night.

My heart mused and my

spirit inquired.

.

Will the Lord reject forever?

Will he never show his favor again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

Has his promise failed for all time?

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

.

Then I thought, "To this

I will appeal:

the years of the right hand

of the Most High.

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;

yes, I will remember your

miracles of long ago.

I will meditate on all your works

and consider all your mighty deeds.

.

(creation out of chaos. noah and a new beginning. abraham and a call, a promise, a covenant. moses and freedom. the parting of the waters. the saving of the oppressed. your mighty hand. manna. the WORD, being passed down, not forgotten. the tabernacle. the leading of your shekinah. walls coming down. a prophet, a king, and an anointed. fire from heaven, defeat of idols. a still small voice. jerusalem. a mighty promise, a shoot, a messiah to come. wisdom. more prophets. captivity, but freedom once again. jerusalem, oh jerusalem. rebuilding of walls. regathering of a people. renewing of your word, read aloud. a community. your love for a people. your returning despite rebellion. always a remnant. the Word, written down, remembered. the warning of prophets. and silence. more silence. and silence even more. And then. AND. THEN. a promise born. God Himself, with us. word become flesh. A shoot, A shepherd, A rabbi, A King. the very One. Son of the Most High. Messiah. life, death, and more life. abundant life. JESUS).

.

Your ways, Oh God, are holy.

.

What God is so great as our God?

(psalm 77).

did you see?

The great leader of nineteenth-century german orthodoxy, samson raphael hirsch, surprised his disciples one day when he insisted on traveling to switzerland. "When I stand shortly before the Almighty," he explained, "I will be held answerable to many questions...but what will I say when...and I'm sure to be asked, 'shimshon, did you see my alps?' "

-martin gordon, journal of jewish thought.

-----

התבודדות - hitbodedut.

התבודדות - hitbodedut: the aloneness required for private conversation with God.

prayer.

You know what I'm beginning to realize?

Prayer is a natural expression of love.

For example, during his farewell speech to the nation of Israel, the prophet Samuel says this:

"As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you." (1 samuel 12:23).

and then, while reading Job this morning, I found the following:

"Early in the morning he (Job) would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, 'Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' This was Job's regular custom." (Job 1:5).

It would seem from these two passages that

not praying = sin

and

praying = love, protection, care.

which means that I probably need to rethink/relearn why I pray and what I pray for.

I live in a city. Am I praying for that city?
I live with/near people. Am I praying for those people?
I am friends with people who are part of ministries far away. Am I praying for those ministries?
I know of people who are struggling in life and in faith. Am I praying for those struggles?

And do I care enough about the community I live in and the people God has placed within my reach to take a moment and bring them before the altar, before the Father?

If the answer is no, then that probably means that I don't care very much at all.

either that, or it means that I don't believe in the power of prayer.

And I don't want either of those things to be true about me.

I care.

I believe.

and

therefore,

I will pray.