Pathways Press.com

MEDITATION:

Written by Valerie E. Hess, a contemporary author, speaker, and musician. This is an excerpt from her book “Spiritual Disciplines Devotional.”

When we read and study to increase our knowledge and understanding of the living God, we must do so with an attitude of humility and repentance. As we read the words, we must let them read us so to speak. We must never use the discipline of study as a purely fact-finding mission. We must use it to be transformed by those words.

Negative examples of lives that don’t match knowledge include healthcare professionals with unhealthy lifestyles, counselors whose personal lives are a mess and financial managers who can’t control their own debt load. Such people have not let the words they preach transform their own lives. As we study God in Scripture, books, and in his work in the world around us, we must ask ourselves how his hand is moving in our lives and how we may be called to respond to him. We must learn to handle the word of truth correctly by taking what we see and hear, and through prayer learning to use it for good first in our own lives before applying it to others.

PRAYER:

Written by Robert Wood, a contemporary American pastor and author.

Why is it that I think I must get somewhere, assume some position, be gathered together or separated apart in the quiet of my study to pray? Why is it that I feel that I have to go somewhere or do some particular act to find you, reach you, and talk with you? Your presence is here – in the city – on the busy bus, in the factory, in the cockpit of the airplane; in the hospital – in the patients’ rooms, in the intensive care unit, in the waiting room; in the home – at dinner, in the bedroom, in the family room, at my workbench; in the car – in the parking lot at the stoplight. Lord, reveal your presence to me everywhere, and help me become aware of your presence each moment of the day. May your presence fill the non-answers, empty glances, and lonely times of my life.  Amen.

MUSIC MEDITATION:

Thy Word. Amy Grant. Written by Amy Grant and Michael Whitaker Smith in 2015.