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MEDITATION:

Written by Shelley Langelaar, a contemporary author and addiction counselor.

God wants to have a relationship with you. Yes, you! God is all about relationship – in fact that is why Jesus hung on a cross – to bridge the gap between us and the Father. Some people shy away from this relationship as they don’t believe that they are worthy of it — Jesus is the One that makes you worthy. Other people shy away out of fear — fear of the unknown — fear of having to give things up — fear of ___________(fill in the blank). God continuously tells us in His Word to fear not, [that God will uphold us]. …Abiding in Christ is to have a close relationship with Him. It involves intimacy. Abiding in Christ is not merely acknowledging that He exists but being one with Him. In order to be truly intimate with someone we need to get to know that person at a deeper level. Having a relationship with another involves both people engaging in the relationship. Without dual engagement the relationship will falter. It is important to remember that when we abide in Him, He in turn abides in us. Abiding in Christ involves trust and submission.

PRAYER:

Written by Mary Southerland, a contemporary writer and speaker.

Father, my heart is filled with fear.  It seems like I am drowning in the uncertainties of my life.  Lord, help me to surrender my fears to You.  Strengthen me to face each one and walk through it, knowing that You are with me. I choose to trust You and doubt my fears.  I choose against stress and for peace.  I choose You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and theologian. This is an excerpt from his sermon “The Most High, a Prayer-Hearing God.”

With respect to God, prayer is but a sensible acknowledgment of our dependence on him to his glory. As he made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures; and it is fitting that he should require this of those who would be subjects of his mercy . . . [it] is a suitable acknowledgment of our dependence on the power and mercy of God for that which we need, and but a suitable honor paid to the great Author and Fountain of all good. With respect to ourselves, God requires prayer of us . . . Fervent prayer in many ways prepares the heart. Hereby is excited a sense of our need . . . whereby the mind is more prepared to prize [his mercy] . . . Our prayer to God may excite in us a suitable sense and consideration of our dependence on God for the mercy we ask, and a suitable exercise of faith in God’s sufficiency, so that we may be prepared to glorify his name when the mercy is received.

PRAYER:

Written by John Chrysostom (AD 347-407), the archbishop of Constantinople and an early theologian of the church.

Almighty God,

you have given us grace to bring our prayers to you,

and you promise that when two or three agree together in your name

you will grant their requests.

Fulfill now, Lord, our desires and prayers,

as may be best for us.

Grant us in this world knowledge of your truth,

and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Carlo Carretto (1910-1988), an Italian religious author of the Catholic congregation of the Little Brothers of the Gospel.  This is an excerpt from his book “Why, O Lord?”

The fact of the matter is that loving is difficult. And so is forgiving, truly forgiving. It is difficult for us and hard for the Church. Since forgiving an adulteress or an ex-priest irks the sensibilities of the “body religious” it is easier to put that body’s interest before the plain word of God. To avoid causing scandal, to set a good example, it is wiser not to accept the scandal of the cross which in any case offends our sense of justice! To defend morals it is more sensible to excommunicate someone, to deprive someone of the Eucharist. By so doing, we avoid offending a community that wants to see justice done, that feels the need to see a sinner punished. We have not succeeded in grasping that we have been bought at the price of blood and that, as Jesus said, “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And God himself has given us the example.

PRAYER:

This prayer is from the Mozarabic Rite, a liturgical rite of the Latin Church, once used generally in the Iberian Peninsula in what is now Spain and Portugal. Developed during Visigoth rule of the Iberian peninsula in the 500s A.D.

We cry to Thee, O Lord, do Thou have mercy upon us and grant forgiveness. O King of heaven, and everlasting Lord, receive the prayers which we pour forth: And grant forgiveness. Visit the sick—bring forth captives, help the widow and the orphan: And grant forgiveness. We have sinned and have departed from Thee, do Thou, who art the Redeemer of all, save us: And grant forgiveness. Have mercy on the penitent, and wash away the stains of sin: And grant forgiveness. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Arthur Schoonveld, a retired minister.

Some years ago, I became acquainted with a man having a garage sale, and he told me his life’s story. Since his divorce some 30 years earlier, he had become a hermit. No family member, no friend, no church in a city with hundreds of churches had bothered to contact him during that entire time. In his own words, he said what the man at the pool said to Jesus: “I have no one …Through that unplanned conversation, he became a family friend. He joined us for our Christmas dinner, and he even asked if he could go to church with us.

The Lord Jesus cares about people who have no one in their lives. He cares about those who live in nursing homes. He cares about the person living by herself. He cares about that challenged person who is looking for a friend. There may be someone in your neighborhood who needs you for a friend. Maybe someone you work with needs a place to celebrate Christmas dinner. Perhaps you need to take someone out for coffee or for lunch this season. Don’t put it off. Look around today. Take time to leave your comfortable surroundings and find someone who has no one.

PRAYER:

Written by Arthur Schoonveld, author of today’s meditation.

Lord God, help us to look around to find someone who is without family or friends. Teach us how to care and share in your name. For Jesus’s sake, Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Tish Harrison Warren, a contemporary Anglican priest and author. This is an excerpt from her book “liturgy of the ordinary.”

This morning I wake (slowly) on an ordinary day, a cool morning. I do not know what lies ahead, but I wake in a bed I know, a house I live in, a routine, a particular life. The psalmist declares, “This is the day the Lord has made.” This one. We wake not to a vague or general mercy from a far-off God. God, in delight and wisdom, has made, named, and blessed this average day. What I in my weakness see as another monotonous day in a string of days, God has given as a singular gift.  When Jesus died for his people, he knew me by name in the particularity of this day. Christ didn’t redeem my life theoretically or abstractly—the life I dreamed of living or the life I think I ideally should be living. He knew I’d be in today as it is, in my home where it stands, in my relationships with their specific beauty and brokenness, in my particular sins and struggles…We tend to want a Christian life with the dull bits cut out. Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?

PRAYER:

Written by Emilie Griffin, a contemporary American author who writes about religious experience and spiritual life.

Dear Lord, make yourself known to me, as you did to your followers, in the middle of ordinary life. I want to believe I can be changed through closeness to you, and to the community surrounding me. Protect me from sin and evil by the power of your grace. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Jennifer E. Jones, a contemporary writer, editor, and online producer.

Lately, the spiders in my neighborhood have gotten out of control. First of all, they’re the size of silver dollars, and they’re everywhere! Just in time for Halloween, I suppose. You don’t see them much during the day, but they’re often hanging out at night and in the wee hours of the morning. Frankly, they creep me out. One morning I was walking my dog and noticed the increase of spider webs along my block. It seemed like out of nowhere these things just popped up. And that wouldn’t be strange normally, but I’m not talking about a little string dangling from a corner. I’m talking about huge, elaborate webs that stretch between trees. They’re massive as though they’re out of a movie. I thought, Who has time to build something like this? I mean, I know they don’t have jobs, but come on! I never see these spiders move, and over night, they’ve taken over. I felt the Lord say, Yes, it’s interesting what can be accomplished in the midnight hours.

Of course! While we are all sleeping, these guys are slowly weaving their homes. Strand by strand, these little web-slingers work diligently even though we never see it. It’s no wonder they are part of God’s creation. You may also be in your midnight hour. You’ve been at work when no one else noticed, building up your faith in the dark. It doesn’t look like you’ve got anything – certainly not anything sturdy enough to hang on to. However, God wants you to keep working. Keep praying. Keep believing. Keep speaking those things that are not as if they were. Dawn is coming, and when the sun hits the dew on your web just right, you’ll see a beautiful masterpiece in the morning light. People will stop and stare in amazement. They will marvel at what faith created and be encouraged by all that can be done in the darkness.

PRAYER:

Written by Ray Simpson, a contemporary author. The prayer is from his book Liturgies from Lindisfarne, which are drawn from early and contemporary Celtic devotion, Anglican, Orthodox, Reformed and Roman Catholic resources.

We give you thanks that you are always present,

in all things, each day and each night.

We give you thanks for your gifts of creation, life

and friendship. We give you thanks for the blessings of this day.

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MEDITATION:

Written by John Van Schepen, a retired pastor.

Each of us needs a healthy dose of comfort from time to time. The child at play who trips and scrapes her knee badly needs comfort from a parent or other caregiver. The young man or woman at college with its unfamiliar surroundings needs someone to talk to. Consider also the young couple whose first child was stillborn, the middle-aged couple whose son died in an accident, and the elderly man whose wife of 60 years is slipping away because of Alzheimer’s. Who will comfort them? When we need comfort, we must remember, first, that God is the Sovereign Lord. He will meet us in every situation with his powerful arm. As an old hymn puts it, “Oh, let me not forget that, though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.” Never forget it! This is our Father’s world. Second, our Father is a loving, compassionate God. No matter what adversities you may be going through today, you can take comfort. Like a shepherd with his sheep, God carries us close to his heart. Remember Jesus’ parting words: “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

PRAYER:

Written by John Van Schepen, author of today’s meditation.

Thank you, Lord, that you are our powerful God of comfort. Even as you carry us close to your heart, so too may we joyfully carry each other’s burdens as we live for you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Vince Amlin, a contemporary pastor and church planter.

Ben Nevis is Scotland’s tallest mountain. Which, at around 4400 feet, is not saying much. But the ascent starts basically from sea level, so you earn every foot. I had climbed the first few dozen stairs when the path curved around the mountain, and for the first time I got a view of what lay ahead: the longest staircase I had ever seen. My mind balked. Could I make it up all those stairs? Did I want to? In thirty minutes I could be back down in a pub eating a full Scottish breakfast. Grudgingly, I started up, praying just to make it to that final stair in the distance. And when I did, heaving in triumph, the path turned again, and I found a staircase three times longer than the one I’d just finished. This is not God’s best pep talk: “If you have raced with foot-runners and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” Jeremiah complains. And God assures him: it’s gonna get so much worse. You think this is a big staircase? But there is a note of hope in God’s reply. If you can hear it from the bottom step. You are meant to run with horses. Not only will you climb these stairs, but the ones after them. And the scree switchbacks after that, and the steep icy section, and the boulder field. You will step onto the highest rock and look down on the clouds. Because you were made for the mountaintop. Which is so much farther than you imagine.

PRAYER:

Written by Nan Jones, a contemporary author and speaker.

Lord, the valley is deep. I’m stumbling over giant stones of despair and brokenness. I find myself tripping over the lies of the enemy — the very lies I recognize as such and yet yield to their evil intent to take my eyes off You. Forgive me, Lord. I know You to be faithful, full of love and mercy. I know You as El Roi, my God who sees me and knows all about it. You are my hope. You are my peace. You are my Light in this present darkness, this valley of the soul. I can see Your mountaintop, Lord. I yearn for its rest. I yearn for its glory — the glory of Your Presence, Your precious touch, the empowerment of Your Holy Spirit. I yearn for You. On the mountaintop. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Christine Caine, a contemporary Australian activist, evangelist, author, and speaker.

Disappointment is a sad and terribly lonely place. We all land there at some point in life. Our children move away and never call. Colleagues betray us. The company to which we’ve devoted our years “downsizes,” and we’re on the layoff list right along with the newcomer and the slacker. The man we love doesn’t love us back. The perfect child we dream about and tend in pregnancy is born with defects that will make the rest of our lives, and all our family members’ lives, nothing less than challenging. We get a disease or suffer an injury for which there is no relief or cure. Our investments dwindle. Friends disappear. The one we’ve prayed to find Jesus never does. Our dreams shatter, and our best-laid plans go astray. Other Christians fail us. People disappoint us. We even disappoint ourselves. The long series of disappointments we accumulate in a lifetime can stop us from moving forward into all the goodness God has planned for us—and that means they’ll be stopping not only us but also those God has destined us to reach along our life’s journey. After all, how can anyone stuck in their own disappointment help others out of theirs? How can we convince others of the wonder of God’s promises if we doubt them ourselves? How can we share how God has saved us when we don’t feel saved at all? Why is it that we can know in our heads that God has our good in mind and that he can redeem any and every circumstance, and yet we can still feel hugely disappointed and deeply despondent? Our heads tell us God is trustworthy—but in a moment of aching disappointment, our hearts tell us he’s not even there.  In these places of deep disappointment, we must remind ourselves of those things about God that we know to be true, though they might not feel true at the moment. We must conclude for ourselves that the valley of death we are walking through isn’t, to borrow an image from Pilgrim’s Progress, a Slough of Despond from which we would never emerge, but simply a shadow, and that shadow does not define our lives. Christ does. There is so much we don’t know. But we do know this: If we are to accept the disappointments that we cannot escape in life, we must turn to God’s Word for hope and encouragement.

PRAYER:

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a cavalry officer in the French Army, an explorer, geographer, and finally a Catholic priest and hermit who lived in Algeria.

My Father, I commend myself to you, I give myself to you, I leave myself in your hands. My Father, do with me as you wish. Whatever you do with me, I thank you. I accept everything. I am ready for anything. I thank you always. So long as your will is done in me and in all creatures, I have no other wish, my God. I put my soul into your hands, giving it to you, my God, with all my heart’s love, which makes me crave to abandon myself to you without reserve, with utter confidence. For are you not my Father?

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MEDITATION:

Written by L. B. Cowman (1870-1960), an American author. This is an excerpt from her devotional book “Streams in the Desert.”

See God in everything, and God will calm and color all that thou dost see!” It may be that the circumstances of our sorrows will not be removed, their condition will remain unchanged; but if Christ, as Lord and Master of our life, is brought into our grief and gloom, “HE will compass us about with songs of deliverance.” To see HIM, and to be sure that His wisdom cannot err, His power cannot fail, His love can never change; to know that even His direst dealings with us are for our deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say, in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain, and loss, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath, taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

PRAYER:

Written by Brother Lawrence (1640-1691), a Carmelite monk and author of “Practicing the Presence of God.”

My God, you are always close to me. In obedience to you, I must now apply myself to outward things. Yet, as I do, I pray that you will give me the grace of your presence. And to this end, I ask that you will assist my work, receive its fruits as an offering to you, and all the while direct all my affections to you. Amen.

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