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MEDITATION:

Written by Andrew Murray (1828-1917), a missionary leader and devotional writer.

There is no more wonderful image in nature of the glory of God than we find in the starry heavens. Telescopes have long discovered the wonders of God’s universe. By means of photography, new wonders of that glory have been revealed. A photographic plate fixed below the telescope will reveal millions of starts which otherwise could never have been seen by the eye. Man must step to one side and allow the glory of the heavens to reveal itself. The stars, at first wholly invisible, will leave their image on the plate. What a lesson for the soul that longs to see the glory of God in His Word. Let your heart be as a photographic plate that waits for God’s glory to be revealed. The plate must be prepared and clean; let your heart be prepared and purified by God’s Spirit…The plate must be immovable; let your heart be still before God in prayer. The plate must be exposed for several hours to receive the full impression of the farthest stars; let your heart take time in silent waiting upon God and He will reveal His glory. If you keep silent before God and give Him time, He will leave within you impressions that will be as the rays of His glory shining in you.

PRAYER:

Written by Crystal Ayres, a contemporary author.

Heavenly Father, thank you that your grace is beyond measure. Throughout eternity, you have been working for my good and the good of all your people. May I know your power and grace to overcome the obstacles in my life. May the things that stand in my way become examples of your limitless power. Clothe me with power as I live my life in your righteous name. May I prosper and bring you glory on the earth. May I be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.Heavenly Father, thank you that your grace is beyond measure. Throughout eternity, you have been working for my good and the good of all your people. May I know your power and grace to overcome the obstacles in my life. May the things that stand in my way become examples of your limitless power. Clothe me with power as I live my life in your righteous name. May I prosper and bring you glory on the earth. May I be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Hadewijech of Antwerp (13^th century), a Beguine who chose to lead a life of poverty and contemplation without taking vows as a nun.

Be on your guard and let nothing disturb your peace. Do good under all circumstances, but with no care for any profit, or any blessedness, or any damnation, or any salvation, or any martyrdom; but all you do or omit should be for the honor of love. If you have like this, you will soon rise up again. And let people take you for a fool; there is much truth in that. Be docile and prompt toward all who have need of you, and satisfy everyone as far as you can manage it without debasing yourself. Be joyful with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be good toward those who have need of you, devoted toward the sick, generous with the poor, and recollected in spirit beyond the reach of all creatures. And even if you do the best you can in all things, your human nature must often fall short; so entrust yourself to God’s goodness, for his goodness is greater than your failures. And always practice true virtues, with confidence, and be diligent and constant in always following unconditionally our Lord’s guiding and his dearest will wherever you can discern it, taking trouble and doing your utmost to examine your thoughts strictly, in order to know yourself in all things.

PRAYER:

Written by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), a Spanish Carmelite nun, reformer, theologian and author.

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are His body.

Christ has no body now but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Joyce Huggett (1937-2017), an author, speaker, and broadcaster. She is considered to be a modern pioneer in the area of contemplative spirituality.

“Meditation” and “contemplation” are often used interchangeably. This is understandable because certain similarities suggest that the two forms of prayer are synonymous. Like meditation, contemplation involves putting ourselves into the hands of God so that he can change and transform our attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. Like meditation, contemplation involves listening intently to the Word of God. And like meditation, contemplation requires stillness in order that we may open ourselves to God and his penetrating, powerful Word. But meditation and contemplation are also marked by certain differences so they should not be confused with each other. Thomas Merton summed it up when he said: “Contemplation is nothing else but the perfection of love.” Or, as others have defined it, contemplation is the prayer of loving regard, the prayer of loving attentiveness, the art of paying rapt and loving attention to God and his world. Contemplation is about growing in love. If we take the work of contemplation seriously, we cannot escape the theme of love—of God’s inexhaustible love for us, for people everywhere, for the whole creation…Contemplation is to know and love God perfectly in the depths of your being. Contemplation goes further and deeper than meditation. While the person meditation mutters and muses on God’s word, the contemplative pays silent attention to Jesus, the living Word—the one who is central to their prayer. Indeed, contemplation goes one step further. Contemplation goes beyond words and symbols and concepts to the reality words and concepts describe.

PRAYER:

Written by Shawn Kafader, a contemporary ordained nondenominational minister and counselor.

Lord, let me no longer be content to live at a distance from you. In your great grace kindle a desire in my heart to be more closely united to you. Fasten me to you with a loving leash of longing for a more perfect life. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Joyce Huggett (1937-2017), an author, speaker, and broadcaster. She is considered to be a modern pioneer in the area of contemplative spirituality.

“Meditation” is another word…people often use about prayer. But Christian meditation must not be confused with yoga, Eastern meditation or transcendental meditation. For, unlike these disciplines, Christian meditation has nothing to do with emptying our minds. Christian meditation engages every part of us—our mind, our emotions, our imagination, our creativity, and supremely, our will. As Archbishop Anthony Bloom puts it, “Meditation is a piece of straight thinking under God’s guidance.” Yet it is not the same as an academic study of the Scriptures…Christian meditation involves not emptiness, but fullness. It means being attentive to God. The purpose of this attentiveness, this reflecting and pondering is, among other things, to see ourselves in the light of God’s revealed word—just as Jesus weighed each of Satan’s subtle temptations against the teaching of the Old Testament. We meditate to give God’s words the opportunity to penetrate, not just our minds, but our emotions—the places where we hurt—and our will—the place where we make choices and decisions. We meditate to encounter the Living Word, Jesus himself. We meditate so that every part of our being, our thoughts, our affections, and our ambitions, are turned to face and honor and glorify him. Yet another reason for learning to meditate is so that we become conversant with the will of God.

PRAYER:

Written by Erwin Lutzer, a contemporary pastor, theologian, broadcaster, and author. 

Father, give us the discipline to meditate in Your Word, “day and night.” Help us to take Your Word into our minds just as we take food into our bodies. Teach us to hide Your Word in our hearts that we might not sin against You. Help us to not succumb to the path of least resistance, but have the discipline we need to follow through with our good intentions. May we be motivated by our loving relationship with You. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Katie Minter Jones, a contemporary author.

Sunrise at the beach is my favorite place to worship and fully experience Jesus; I’m overwhelmed by His presence there. His majesty is displayed in the splendor of the sunrise as the rays paint the sky with beautiful shades of color. The roar of the waves proclaims His might. The smell of the salt in the air, the feel of the soft sand beneath my feet, and the cool mist all refresh me. When Jesus was on earth, He must have loved the sea also. The Bible tells several stories where He’s on the sea or at the beach. Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when He called two fisherman, Peter and Andrew, to be His disciples, making them fishers of men. In Matthew 8:24–27, Jesus was on the boat asleep when the disciples became afraid and woke him. A storm was threatening to sink the boat, and Jesus calmed the wind and the waves, unleashing His power on the sea. Jesus didn’t stop there . . . He walked on the water. And after Jesus was resurrected, He stood on the beach at dawn, but the disciples did not recognize Him. They had been out all night, fishing without a single catch. He told them to cast their nets to the right side of the boat, and their nets became full. A miracle on the beach! Time after time, Jesus uses the backdrop of the sea to reveal His love to humanity. The Bible describes His love for us as being deeper than the ocean. The beach proclaims His majesty, His presence, and the depth of His love. Let the vastness of the ocean and the beauty of His creation remind you again today that His love for you is fathomless.

PRAYER:

This prayer is from the “Carmina Gadelica” six volumes of prayers, hymns, blessings, songs, proverbs, and literary folkloric poems from the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland. 

God the Father, all-powerful, all loving,

Jesus, the Son of tears and sorrow,

With thy co-assistance, O Holy Spirit!

The Three-One, ever-living, ever-mighty, everlasting,

Who brought the Children of Israel through the Red Sea,

And Jonah to land from the belly of the great creature of the ocean,

Who brought Paul and his companions in the ship,

From the torment of the sea, from the sorrow of the waves,

From the great gale, from the heavy storm,

Protect us and shield and sanctify us,

Be seated, O king of the elements, at our helm,

And lead us in peace to the end of our journey. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Ray Stedman (1917-1992), a pastor and author.

The great hindrance to having faith in God is pride, the pride that refuses to forgive. That is like a mountain that fills up your whole life. All you can see is that big mountain looming before you, and it is blocking the life of God in your life. You have the power to have that removed if, when you stand and pray, you will forgive those who have offended you. Because the only thing that stops us from forgiving one another is pride. We feel justified in wanting others to forgive us but also in feeling that we have to exact a price for the hurt they have caused us. So, in many ways—subtle, or direct and open—we insist that we will not forgive, that our offenders have to pay for what they have done to us. Somehow, we are going to make them crawl, make them beg or plead for forgiveness. And that, Jesus says, is a great mountain that needs to be removed, for it is blocking the flow of the life of God to your faith.

PRAYER:

Written by Cheryce Rampersad, a contemporary Christian author. 

Father, bless me with the wonderful power of forgiveness, give me the grace to unconditionally forgive those who have done me wrong. Fill my heart with love toward my fellowman. Let kindness be my first nature. Let peace consume my thoughts and tranquility overtake my soul.  Free me of all anger, bitterness, hate, and unforgiveness. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. This is an excerpt from his book “Orthodoxy.”

We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally, I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road – very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape. Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier…We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the safeguards against freedom… No ideal will remain long enough to be realized or even partly realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always be changing his mind. This, therefore is our first requirement about the ideal toward which progress is directed: it must be fixed…It does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.

PRAYER:

Today’s prayer is from the United Church of Christ Book of Worship.

Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have it: a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect; a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by John Ortberg, a contemporary pastor, speaker, and author.

Ten men were cleansed. Ten were given their life back. Only one turned around. Nine ran the wrong way. Only one came back to thank the Giver for the gift. When I read the story of Jesus and the lepers, I wonder why the only grateful one was the Samaritan. I wonder if the fact that he was Samaritan and Jesus was Jewish made him that much more aware of what a gracious gift this was. Having too much can make a person ungrateful. The illusion of gratitude is that we will experience it more if we get new stuff that we really want. We tend to keep score by comparing ourselves to others. When it comes to affluence, for instance, we tend to follow what psychologist Leon Festinger calls the “principle of slight upward comparison.” We chronically compare ourselves with those just a little better off, in the hopes of attaining their level of success. This keeps us from gratitude. It also keeps our eyes off people who are under-resourced so that we don’t think about our need to share. God gives us the gift of the capacity for gratitude. Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It opens us up to wonder, delight, and humility. It makes our hearts generous. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation. Gratitude is the gift God gives us that enables us to be blessed by all his other gifts, the way our taste buds enable us to enjoy the gift of food. Without gratitude, our lives degenerate into envy, dissatisfaction, and complaints, taking what we have for granted and always wanting more. We can have very little and yet be rich. A rich soul experiences life differently. It experiences a sense of gratitude for what it has received, rather than resentment for what it hasn’t gotten. It faces the future with hope rather than anxiety.
 We break rules — we violate God’s will — because we think breaking them will help us win, or at least avoid pain. But what we do not see is that the very breaking of them turns us into the kind of people who are increasingly incapable of the gratitude and purity of heart that makes lasting happiness and meaning possible. The great secret joy of life — the prize that we think getting richer will bring us — is the ecstasy of gratitude. Gratitude is how those rich toward God — rich in being, not just having — play the game. The apostle Paul discovered that whether he was living in luxury or living in prison he had more than enough because he had been freed from the treadmill of having. Are you experiencing the ecstasy of gratitude, or on the treadmill of having?

PRAYER:

Written by Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), a Christian cleric and writer.

Liberate us, we pray you, Lord, from the getting and grasping to which we are prone. Teach us the royal way of the law of the gift, that in giving not only things but ourselves we may know even now the life abundant you promise to bring to perfection in eternal life with you. Increase in us gratitude for your gift of yourself and let that gift of gratitude inspire us to the greatness of living our lives as love in response to love. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by James Dobson, a contemporary author and his wife Shirley Dobson, a contemporary author and chair of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.  This is an excerpt from their book “Night Light for Couples.”

It’s tempting for some of us to view our Lord as a heavenly “Mr. Fix‐It”—a supernatural problem solver who can be manipulated according to our whims. We might make a little wager on our favorite football team and then pray for God to intervene so our team will win. Or on the day of the church picnic, we might pray for a rainstorm, so we don’t have to fix that potato salad we promised to bring. Others see prayer as a negotiating tool. They want to make a deal with God: “Lord, if You give me this promotion at work… or allow me to get pregnant this month…or let that car at the dealership still be on sale… then I promise I’ll do [fill in the blank] for You.” Of course, these are foolish bargains that reveal a misunderstanding of the majesty of God. He is Lord of lords, King of kings, and Creator of all heaven and earth. He is not a deal-maker who allows Himself to be manipulated. Instead, He wants us to carefully consider His will for our lives before we pray. Prayer is a privilege—a direct line to the Lord’s eternal wisdom and love. Let’s not forget what a blessing it is just to come into His presence.

PRAYER:

Today’s prayer is from the authors of today’s meditation.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the privilege of bringing our requests to You. Give us a deep desire for Your will—not ours—and help us to shape our prayers and our priorities accordingly. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Henry Cloud, a contemporary Christian psychologist and author.  This is an excerpt from his book with John Townsend, “Boundaries With Kids.”

A woman complained to me about a coworker who would always interrupt her while she was trying to get her job done. She acted as if her tendency to be behind in her work was her coworker’s fault. “Why do you talk to her?” I asked. “What do you mean?” she replied. “When she comes in and interrupts, why do you get into a conversation with her?”  “Well, I have to. She is standing there talking.” “Why don’t you just tell her that you have work to do, or close your door and put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign?”  The woman looked at me with a blank stare. To have choices and to have control of her own behavior was a concept that hadn’t occurred to her. She felt that if something happened “to her,” then that was the way it had to be. There was nothing she could do to change it. When I suggested that she had many choices, she quizzed me about them. I gave her five or six suggestions, from talking to the woman about the problem to talking to a supervisor, to asking to be moved to another area. This was a totally new way of thinking for her; she had never learned that she was free to make choices in relationships and in life.

Have you ever been in a relationship with a “victim”? Victims feel as if they have no choices in life. Life is something that happens to them, and whatever comes their way is their lot. Joe was such a victim. His company was imposing some new policies that he found difficult to handle, and he was very depressed about the changes. “What are you going to do about it?” I asked him. “What do you mean, do about it?” Joe asked. “I mean what are you going to do about your being stuck in something you don’t like?” He just looked at me. It took a long time before he realized that he could choose to get his resume out to some other firms and not be a victim to the fifty-hour workweek he hated. Adults and children raised with good boundaries learn that they are not only responsible for their lives, but also free to live their lives any way they choose, as long as they take responsibility for their choices. For the responsible adult, the sky is the limit. We live in a society of victims. People today act as if they have no choices in life and that everything should be done for them. If it’s not, they can’t do it themselves or make changes. This presents a big opportunity for the future: If you learn to take control of your own life, you will be so far ahead of everyone else that success in life is all but guaranteed!

PRAYER:

Today’s prayer is from The Mozarabic Rite, a liturgical rite of the Latin Church once used generally in the Iberian Peninsula (Hispania), in what is now Spain and Portugal.  Developed during Visigoth (Arian Christian) rule of the Iberian peninsula  in the 500s AD.

Look on us and hear us,

O Lord our God,

and help us to please you

as we do the work you have given to us.

As you have given the first act of will,

so give the completion of the work.

Give us strength to finish

what you have moved us to begin;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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