Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – James 1:2-5 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Devotional 

If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3b). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God!
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child – a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple that it has ever been?... Until we come face to face with the deepest darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.
-Oswald Chambers

Question to Consider 

What is one thing God might want you to unlearn today?

Prayer 

Father, I confess to you that when difficulties and trials come into my life, large or small, I mostly grumble and complain. I realize the trials James talks about are not necessarily Walls, but they are difficult to bear nonetheless. Fill me with such a vision of a transformed life, O God, that I might actually consider it “pure joy” when you bring all sorts of trials my way. I believe LORD. Help my unbelief. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Psalm 69: 1-3, 15-16 

Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help;
my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
looking for my God.
Do not let the floodwaters engulf me
or the depths swallow me up
or the pit close its mouth over me.
Answer me, O LORD out of the goodness of your love;
in your great mercy turn to me.

Devotional 

The Bible presents David as a man after God’s own heart, yet our reading today shows us that his emotional world was very human and broken. He bares his soul in these heart-wrenching poems as prayers back to God. While he often struggles with his circumstances, David affirms that God is good and his love endures forever. He knows God’s ways are higher and deeper than ours (Isaiah 55:9-10)
John Milton in Paradise Lost compares the evil of history to a compost pile – a mixture of decaying substances such as animal excrement, vegetable and fruit peels, potato skins, egg shells, dead leaves, and banana peels. If you cover it with dirt, after some time it smells wonderful. The soil has become a rich, natural fertilizer and is tremendous for growing fruit and vegetables – but you have to be willing to wait, in some cases, years.
Milton’s point is that the worst events of human history that we cannot understand, even hell itself, are only compost in God’s wonderful eternal plan. Out of the greatest evil, the death of Jesus, came the greatest good.
The fact that God exists does not lessen the awfulness of evil in the world; nevertheless, we can rest in him, placing our hope in a God who is so great and sovereign that he ultimately transforms all evil into good.
We can trust God at the Wall.

Question to Consider 

 How is God inviting you to wait on him today?

Prayer 

LORD, fill me with the simple trust today that out of the most awful evil around me, you are able to bring great good – for me, for others and for your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Romans 11:33-36 

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Devotional 

Our experience at the Wall provides the fruit of a greater appreciation for what I call “holy unknowing” or mystery. This expands our capacity to wait on God when everything inside us is saying, “Do something!”
There is an old story about a wise man living on one of China’s vast frontiers. One day, for no apparent reason, a young man’s horse ran away and was taken by nomads across the border. Everyone tried to offer consolation for the man’s bad fortune, but his father, a wise man, said, “What makes you so sure this is not a blessing?”
Months later, his horse returned, bringing with her a magnificent stallion. This time everyone was full of congratulations for the son’s good fortune. But now his father said, “What makes you so sure this isn’t a disaster?”
Their household was made richer by this fine horse the son loved to ride. But one day he fell off his horse and broke his hip. Once again, everyone offered their consolation for his bad luck, but his father said, “What makes you sure this is not a blessing?”
A year later nomads invaded across the border, and every able-bodied man was required to take up his bow and go into battle. The Chinese families living on the border lost nine of every ten men. Only because the son was lame did father and son survive to take care of each other.
Often, what appears like a blessing and success is actually a terrible thing; what appears to be a terrible event turns out to be a rich blessing.

Question to Consider 

Have you experienced any “terrible” circumstances that actually turned out to be a rich blessing much later?

Prayer 

Forgive me, Father, for treating you at times as if you were my personal assistant or secretary. Your ways are unsearchable and beyond understanding. Help me put my trust in you and not in my circumstances. In your presence, I am silenced. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading –Hebrews 12:7-11 

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Furthermore, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Devotional 

The best way to understand the dynamics of the Wall is to examine the classic work of St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, written over five hundred years ago. He described the journey in three phases: beginners, progressives, and perfect. To move out of the beginning stage, he argued, required the receiving of God’s gift of the dark night, or the Wall. This is the “ordinary way” we grow in Christ.
It is God’s way of rewiring and “purging our affections and passions” that we might delight in his love and enter into a richer, fuller communion with him. God wants to communicate to us his true sweetness and love. He longs that we might know his true peace and rest. He works to free us from unhealthy attachments and idolatries of the world.
For this reason, John of the Cross wrote that God sends us “the dark night of loving fire” to free us from such deadly spiritual imperfections as: pride (being judgmental and impatient with the faults of others), avarice (suffering discontentment), luxury (taking more pleasure in spiritual blessings than God himself), wrath (becoming easily irritated, impatient), spiritual gluttony (resisting the cross), spiritual envy (always comparing) and sloth (running from what is hard).

Question to Consider 

What might be some unhealthy attachments or “idols” God wants to remove from your life in order to lead you to deeper, richer communion with him?

Prayer 

LORD, I invite you this day to cut any unhealthy attachments or ‘idols’ out of me. You promise in Psalm 32 to teach me the way to go. Help me not be stubborn like a mule but rather to be cooperative as you seek to lead me to freedom. Lead me to a place of communion with you where true peace and rest is found. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Song of Songs 1:2, 3:1-3 

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth –
for your love is more delightful than wine.
All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”

Devotional 

Christians read the Song of Songs primarily on two levels; as the marital love of a man and woman and as description of our love relationship with the LORD Jesus as our Bridegroom. Chapter 3:1-3 describes, in particular, the experience Mother Teresa of Calcutta as she writes about her painful struggle with God’s absence throughout her fifty-year service among the poor.
When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven – there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love – the word – it brings nothing. I am told God loves me – and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul… In spite of all – this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God…Before I could spend hours before Our Lord – loving Him – talking to Him – and now – not even meditation goes properly. Yet deep down somewhere in my heart that longing for God keeps breaking through the darkness… My soul is just like an ice block – I have nothing to say.
She came to realize that her darkness was the spiritual side of her work, a sharing in Christ’s suffering, a treasure for her and her unique work. She eventually wrote: “I have come to love the darkness. For I believe that it is a part, a very small part of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth.”

Question to Consider 

 What treasures might there be in such “darkness” or difficulties in your own life today?

Prayer 

Father, teach me to trust you even when I feel like I am alone and that you are asleep in the boat with storms raging all around me. Awaken me to the treasures that can only be found in darkness. And grant me grace to follow you into the next place you have for me in this journey called life. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Genesis 12:1-3 

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

Devotional 

The image of the Christian life as a journey captures our experience of following Christ like few others. Journeys involve movement, action, stops and starts, detours, delays, and trips into the unknown.
God called Abraham to leave his comfortable life in Ur at the age of seventy-five and to embark on a long, slow journey; a journey with God that would require much patient trust.

Patient Trust
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you.
And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
-Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Question to Consider 

 What does it mean for you to trust in the slow work of God today?

Prayer 

Grant me courage, Father, to embark on the unique journey you have crafted for me. By faith, I surrender my need and desire to be in control of every event, circumstance, person I will meet today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Psalm 131 

 My heart is not proud, O LORD,’
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Devotional 

        We often forget our humanity, our limits, and our inability to change others. Considering that David was one of the more powerful people in his day, it is striking how he reminds himself in this psalm not to think more highly of himself than he ought.
        The following words from an anonymous rabbi have served me well over the years to keep me focused on Christ changing me:
         When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little older, I perceived this was too ambitious, so I set out to change my state. This too I realized was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state – and who knows maybe even the world.
-Hasidic Rabbi on his Deathbed

Question to Consider

In Psalm 131:1, David prays: “I do not concern myself with the great matters or things too wonderful for me” How do you hear these words?

Prayer

 LORD Jesus, give my heart eyes to see and ears to hear the ways I need to change. May I be more deeply, radically, and powerfully transformed for your name’s sake. Amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Exodus 14:10, 13-16 

        As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.
        Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
        Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”
Devotional Moses demonstrates godly leadership both of himself and the people around him as Egypt’s army overtakes them at the Red Sea. In their anxiety, the multitude of Israelites distort the past and refuse to move forward. They prefer the miserable past to an unknown future with God.
        Moses courageously stands alone and calls them to “be still” and to “move on.” He picks up his staff and takes deliberate steps to move ahead. By remembering the LORD (being still), Moses courageously does what is best despite other people’s lack of support (moving on). He models the delicate balance of “being still” while at the same time “moving on.” In doing so, he transforms not only his own life, but the life of all those around him.
        Everyone who draws breath “takes the lead” many times a day. We lead with actions that range from a smile to a frown; with words that range from blessing to curse; with decisions that range from faithful to fearful… When I resist thinking of myself as a leader, it is neither because of modesty nor a clear-eyed look at the reality of my life… I am responsible for my impact on the world whether I acknowledge it or not.
        So what does it take to qualify as a leader? Being human and being here. As long as I am here, doing whatever I am doing, I am leading, for better or for worse. And, if I may say so, so are you.
-Parker Palmer

Question to Consider 

How might the words from Exodus 14:14, “The LORD will fight for you, you need only to “be still” and “move on” apply to you today?

Prayer 

LORD, I can relate to the Israelites in the desert in their desire to return to what is predictable – even if it is miserable. Change is hard. Grant me the courage of Moses to walk the delicate balance of being still and moving on to the new life in Christ that you have for me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Acts 9:1-6, 15-16 

        Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the LORD’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
        “Who are you, LORD?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied, “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
        But the LORD said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Devotional Saul’s great conversion and life as an apostle can only be understood by looking at his entire life and training leading up to this famous passage in Acts 9.
Soren Kierkegaard once observed that life is lived forward but understood backward. This was certainly Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s experience.
        Solzhenitsyn is considered by many to be the greatest Russian writer of the twentieth century, but his sense of calling had not always been clear. His purpose grew in his experiences of the Gulag, the Soviet concentration camps – a place where he experienced a deadly struggle to write, a miracle of a cure from cancer, a conversion through a Jewish follower of Jesus, and a deepening burden to put “the dying wish of millions” on record.
        The one worrying thing was that I might not be given time to carry out the whole scheme. I felt as though I was about to fill a space in the world that was meant for me and had long awaited me, a mold, as it were, made for me alone, but discerned by me only this very moment. I was a molten substance, impatient, unendurably impatient, to pour into my mold, to fill it full, without air bubbles or cracks, before I cooled and stiffen.

Later, the true significance of what happened would inevitably become clear to me, and I would be numb with surprise.
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Question to Consider 

What space in the world is waiting to be filled by you and for which your past has prepared you?

Prayer 

LORD, you are good and your love endures forever. Help me trust you – for the good as well as the difficult, the successes and the failures, the joys and the sorrows of the past. I surrender to your voice that whispers to me, ‘All is well, and all will be well.’ In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Genesis 50:15, 19-21 

        When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?”
        His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Devotional 

        Joseph was born into a family characterized by great brokenness and sadness. Lying, jealousy, secrecy and betrayal visit Joseph’s young life and he spends ten to thirteen years in prison, completely cut off from his family.
Nonetheless, Joseph is able to observe the large, loving hand of God through all his setbacks and disappointments. In doing so, he affirmed that God mysteriously leads us into his purposes through darkness and obscurity. God is the LORD God Almighty who has all history in his grip, working in ways that are mostly hidden to us on earth. Joseph understood that in all things God is at work – in spite of, and through, and against all human effort – to orchestrate his purposes.
        God never loses any of our past for his future when we surrender ourselves to him. He is the LORD! Every mistake, sin, and detour we take in the journey of life is taken by God and becomes his gift for a future of blessing when we surrender ourselves to him.
        Why did God allow Joseph to go through such pain and loss? We see traces of the good that came out of it in Genesis 37-50, but much remains a mystery. Most important for us today is that Joseph did not deny his past but trusted in God’s goodness and love, even when circumstances went from bad to worse.

Question to Consider 

What would it look like for you to surrender the pains of your past (mistakes, sins, setbacks and disappointments) to God today?

Prayer 

Father, I affirm with Joseph that you sovereignly placed me into my family, my culture, and my present circumstances. I cannot see all that you see, but ask you to show me how, like Joseph, I can rest in your love and power – even when I can’t see any good that you might be doing. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Mark 3:31-35 

        Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Devotional 

        When we become Christians, we are adopted into the family of Jesus. Jesus was clear and direct in calling people to a first loyalty to himself. Discipleship, he made clear, is putting off the sinful patters of unbelief so that we might put on the choices of faith, being transformed to live as members of his family.
        As we go back to go forward, we find that it is a never ending process. We go back, breaking some destructive power of the past. Then later, on a deeper level, God has us return to the same issue on a more profound level.
Thomas Keating compares God’s work in us to a Middle Eastern “tell”, or archeological site, where one civilization is built on another in the same place. Archeologists excavate, level by level, culture by culture, down through history. The Holy Spirit is like a Divine Archeologist digging through the layers of our lives.
        “The Spirit intends to investigate our whole life history, layer by layer, throwing out the junk and preserving the values that were appropriate to each stage of our human development … Eventually, the Spirit begins to dig into the bedrock of our earliest emotional life … Hence, as we progress toward the center where God is actually waiting for us, we are naturally going to feel that we are getting worse. This warns us that the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move. It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self.

Question to Consider What false self are you struggling with that Christ wants you to die to so that you can truly live?

Prayer 

Holy Spirit, I invite you to dig through the layers of my being that hinder my relationships and communication with others. Grant me perseverance to allow you to dig deeply, excavating out of me all that is not Christ, that I may be filled with your presence. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Luke 9:57-62 

 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But the man replied, “LORD, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Still another said, “I will follow you, LORD; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Devotional 

        There’s a story about a boy who, having grown up at the edge of a wide, turbulent river, spent his childhood learning to build rafts. When the boy reached manhood, he felled some trees down, lashed them together, and riding his raft, he crossed to the far side of the river. Because he had spent so long working on the raft, he couldn’t see leaving it behind when he reached dry land, so he lashed it to his shoulders and carried it with him, though all he came upon in his journeys were a few easily fordable streams and puddles. He rarely thought about the things he was missing out on because he was carrying the bulky raft – the trees he couldn’t climb, vistas he couldn’t see, people he couldn’t get close to and races he couldn’t run. He didn’t even realize how heavy the raft was because he had never known what it was like to be free of it.
-Lori Gordon

        While all of us are affected by powerful external events and circumstances throughout our earthly lives, our families of origin are the most influential group to which we will ever belong. Even those who leave home as young adults, determined to “break” with their family histories, soon find their family’s way of “doing” life follows them wherever you go.
        Family patterns from the past are played out in our present relationships without us necessarily being aware of it. This family history lives inside all of us, especially in those who attempt to bury it. The price we pay for is high.
Only the truth sets us free. What was learned can be unlearned. And by God’s grace and power, we can learn new things in their place, making change and freedom possible. 

Question to Consider What heavy “raft” might you be carrying as you seek to climb the mountains God has placed before you?

Prayer

 LORD, I too prefer to not look at or remember the painful past. Show me, O Father, the heavy weights and rafts I may be carrying due to my past. Help me learn what it means to honestly face my past, lift it up to you, and allow you to use it as a means of my maturing and growing in Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Hebrews 11:24-27 

        By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

Devotional 

        Even the worst and most painful family experiences become part of our total identity. God had a plan in placing us in our particular families and cultures. And the more we know about our families, the more we know about ourselves – and the more freedom we have to make decisions about how we want to live.
If we ignore truth out of fear, we end up like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations. The daughter of a wealthy man, she received a letter on her wedding day at 8:40 A.M. that her husband to be was not coming. She stopped all clocks in the house at the precise time the letter arrived and spent the rest of her life in her bridal dress (it eventually turned yellow), wearing only one shoe (since she had not yet put on the other at the time of the disaster). Even as an old lady, she remained crippled by the weight of that crushing blow. It was as if “everything in the room and house had stopped.” She decided to live in her past, not her present or future.
        Moses’ life had more than its share of pain and failure. Raised in a wealthy, privileged home, he murders a man, loses everything and spends the next forty years of his life in obscurity in the desert. Yet, by faith, he “sees him who is invisible” and hears God’s invitation to do something that will be a blessing to many.

Question to Consider What invitation might God be offering to you out of the failures and pain of your past?

Prayer 

LORD Jesus, set me free to be the person you have destined me to be. Help me pause to hear your voice today and to leave behind the “baggage” I am carrying as I seek to follow you. Help me discern your hand at work in and through my life, both in the past and the future. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Devotional

         In his book, Song of the Bird, Tony de Mello tells the following story:
A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
        All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.
        “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth – we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”

Question to Consider

In what area of your life might you be living as a chicken when God, in reality, has made you an eagle?

Prayer

        Father, you have made me a golden eagle to fly. In so many ways, however, I still live as a chicken, unaware of the heights and the richness to which you have called me. Fill me Holy Spirit. Set me free to be the unique person the LORD Jesus has created me to be. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

*Personal retreat day.

Guide to Personal Retreat

The term PERSONAL, PRIVATE retreat, refers to an extended time of being “away” from the duties, people, distractions (and usually the location) of ordinary life,and places you alone with the Lord. Below are only some suggestions to help you start customizing, and enjoying your special time with the Lord.
+ Start your retreat as early in the morning as you can, try not getting busy with anything, even when you are showering, try to recite a psalm or Jesus’s prayer.
+ It is best to choose the location for your retreat before the day so you are not distracted with decisions as the day of the retreat arrives. Bring only what is necessary for your time with God (bible, agbeya, personal journal).
+ Plan to spend at least two hours in the presence of the Almighty God, no matter how hard the devil will fight you. Some of the first things you may notice right when you start your special time are distractions. Distractions are the “stuff,” external or internal, that is presented in our consciousness and tend to draw our attention from the presence of the God. Noises, temperature, hunger, thoughts about tomorrow’s responsibilities, and thoughts of “I wonder if I am doing this retreat right” can all be distractions. Don’t worry if that happens, for you are on your way to start a very special time with God.
+ Spent about 10 minutes in silence ask God to guide you through His Holy Spirit.
+ At times the distraction will press you until you deal with it in a temporary kind of way. It is not uncommon to find yourself remembering tasks and responsibilities that have been on your mind. In that case, pour out all your thoughts, and feelings before God almighty, writing down all your distraction will help you get rid of it. (15 min)
+ Read your favorite psalm or bible passage (10 min)
+ Read your personal spiritual journal and all the comment you wrote throughout the week. Communicate all your burdens and issues with God, it could be issues you need to attend to in your relationship with God? Are there areas of guidance that you might want to bring before the Lord during this time together? Are there special joys you want to celebrate with the Lord, even remind him of the all the faithful attempts you have made in your journey with Him? (30 min)
+ In a prayer cry out your favorite psalm or hymen spend this time praising the Lord almighty your way. (20 Min)
+ Be still and silent and let God speaks to your soul.
+ Spend the rest of the time reading a whole entire book of the bible.
+ Spend a little while re-collecting your thoughts from the time. The Lord will give you guidance it is good to enjoy this time with Jesus, but remember, his kindness leads to repentance. Don’t ignore his invitation; consider specific responses to the Spirit’s call upon your life.
Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t feel filled or satisfied, remind yourself that it does not mean your retreat was not fruitful, it is just because your soul is really thirsty and needs time and perseverance to quench this thirst.
+ Conclude with a prayer.

Scripture Reading – Romans 8:35-39

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Devotional

        Most of us place a higher premium on what other people think than we realize. As we read in Galatians, the apostle Paul understood this struggle intimately.
M. Scott Peck illustrates the point through a story of meeting a high school classmate at the age of fifteen. The following are his reflections after a conversation with his friend.
I suddenly realized that for the entire ten-minute period from when I had first seen my acquaintance until that very moment, I had been totally self-preoccupied. For the two or three minutes before we all met all I was thinking about was the clever things I might say that would impress him. During our five minutes together I was listening to what he had to say only so that I might turn it into a clever rejoinder. I watched him only so that I might see what effect my remarks were having upon him. And for the two or three minutes after we separated my sole thought content was those things I could have said that might have impressed him even more. I had not cared a whit for my classmate.
What is most startling in reading a detailed explanation of what goes on beneath the surface at the age of fifteen is that the same dynamics continue into our twenties, thirties, fifties, seventies, and nineties. We remain trapped in living a pretend life.
        True freedom comes when we no longer need to be somebody special in other people’s eyes because we know we are loveable and good enough in Christ.

Question to Consider

How might it change your day today if you ceased to look for human approval and sought only the approval of God?
Prayer Grant me the courage LORD, to do today what you have given me to do, to say what you have given me to say, and to become who you have called me to become. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – 1 Kings 19:1-5

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said, “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”

Devotional

            After Elijah’s great victory over 850 false prophets at Mount Carmel, he has to run for his life. During that process, he becomes both exhausted and depressed – to the point of wanting to die. For reasons not given in this text, we find Elijah under a broom tree alone and wanting to die. He is, as we call it today, “burned out”.
When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless – a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be cared for.
One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as a result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess – the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.
-Parker Palmer

Question to Consider

What would it look like for you to respect yourself in light of your God-given human limits?
Prayer Jesus, you know my tendency to say “Yes” to more commitments than I can possibly keep. Help me embrace the gift of my limits physically, emotionally and spiritually. And may you, LORD Jesus, be glorified in and through me today. In your name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Mark 10:26-31

The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”
“I will tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers children and fields – with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Devotional
        Anthony (AD 251-356) grew up in a wealthy family in Egypt, receiving an excellent education and upbringing from his Christian parents. One Sunday, Anthony heard the words: “Go sell all you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven,” and he felt God speaking directly to his heart. Unlike the rich young ruler, he responded to Jesus in faith.
Selling his possessions, he went off into the solitude of the Egyptian desert, not just for a few days or weeks, but for twenty years! He renounced possessions to learn detachment; he renounced speech in order to learn compassion; he renounced activity in order to learn prayer. In the desert, Anthony both discovered God and did intense battle with the devil.
       When he emerged from his solitude after twenty years, people recognized in him the qualities of an authentic “healthy” man: whole in body, mind and soul. God soon catapulted him into one of the most remarkable ministries of that day. He preached the gospel among the rich and the poor, performed many healings, expelled demons and more. The Emperor Constantine Augustus sought out his counsel. He served tirelessly in prisons and among the poor.
In his old age, Anthony retired to an even deeper solitude to be totally absorbed in direct communion with God. He died in the year 356 at the age of one hundred and six years old.

Question to Consider
What impresses you most from the story of Anthony’s life?

Prayer
LORD, it is clear that layers of Anthony’s false, superficial self were shed during his time with you. Crack the hard shell over my heart that obscures and buries my true self in Christ. Transform me into the kind of person you desire me to be. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:13-16

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know this full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Devotional
            David seems to have maintained the tension of two complementary truths taught in Scripture. We are sinners who desperately need forgiveness and a Savior. At the same time, God created us in his image, knit us together in our mother’s wombs with enormous care, and chose us for a special purpose on earth. Parker Palmer captures the wonder of Psalm 139:
Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

             It is a strange gift, this birthright self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else! I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or squandering it – and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one’s self. Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: “Why were you not Moses?” They will ask me: “Why were you not Zusya?”

Question to Consider
What do you think might be one of your “birthright” gifts from God that has been ignored in your life?

Prayer
LORD, I come this day inviting you to cut those deeply entrenched chains that keep me from being faithful to my true self n Christ. In doing so may my life be a blessing to many. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – 1 Samuel 17:38-40,45

          Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
           David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”

Devotional
          Even as a young man, David knows both himself and God. Having taken off Saul’s armor, he goes up against the nine-foot Goliath with only his sling shot and a few smooth stones, confident in the living God.
Unlike David, however, the vast majority of us go to our graves without ever really knowing who we are. We unconsciously live someone else’s life, or at least someone else’s expectations of us.
We are so unaccustomed to being our true self that it can seem impossible to know where to begin. Thomas Merton describes what we so often do:
          I … love to clothe this false self … and I wind experiences around myself with pleasures and glory like                         bandages in order to make myself visible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could                 only become visible when something visible covered its surface. But there is no substance under the things with             which I am clothed. I am hollow … And when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own                       nakedness and emptiness and hollowness…

          The path we must walk to remove the layers of our false self is initially very hard. Powerful forces around and inside us work to smother the process of nurturing the seeds planted in each of us. At the same time the God of the universe has made his home in us (John 14:23). The very glory God gave Jesus has been given to us (John 17:21-23).

Question to Consider
What might be one false layer or bandage God is inviting you to remove today?

Prayer
LORD, grant me the courage of David to resist the temptation to live a life that is not the one you have given to me. Deliver me from the “Goliaths” in front of me and the negative voices I hear so often. Help me listen and obey your voice today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Mark 1:33-38
The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Devotional
The challenge to shed our “old false” self in order to live authentically in our “new true” self strikes at the very core of true spirituality. We see this authenticity in the life of Jesus.
In the midst of a mini-revival in the town of Capernaum, Jesus was able to withstand the pressure of everyone looking for him and to move to another place. He also knew his Father, who loved him and had a work for him to complete. In living faithfully to his true self, however, Jesus disappointed a lot of people.
- He disappointed his family to the point where his mother and siblings wondered if he was out of his mind (Mark 3:21)
- He disappointed the people he grew up with in Nazareth. When Jesus declared who he really was – the Messiah – they tried to push him off a cliff (Luke 4:28-29)
- He disappointed his closest friends, the twelve disciples. They projected onto Jesus their own picture of the kind of Messiah they expected him to be. When he failed to meet their expectations, they quit on him.
- He disappointed the crowds. They wanted an earthly Messiah who would feed them, fix all their problems, overthrow the Roman oppressors, work miracles, and give inspiring sermons. They walked away from him.
- He disappointed the religious leaders. They did not appreciate the disruption his presence brought to their day-to-day lives or to their theology. They finally attributed his power to demons and had him crucified.

Question to Consider
What might be one specific way that you give in to the expectations of others rather than be faithful to what Jesus has for you?

Prayer
Jesus, I am so grateful that you understand what it is like to feel pressure from the expectations of others. It can feel crushing at times. LORD, help me to love others well, while at the same time, remain faithful to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

The term PERSONAL, PRIVATE retreat, refers to an extended time of being “away” from the duties, people, distractions (and usually the location) of ordinary life,and places you alone with the Lord. Below are only some suggestions to help you start customizing, and enjoying your special time with the Lord.

+ Start your retreat as early in the morning as you can, try not getting busy with anything, even when you are showering, try to recite a psalm or Jesus’s prayer.
+ It is best to choose the location for your retreat before the day so you are not distracted with decisions as the day of the retreat arrives. Bring only what is necessary for your time with God (bible, agbeya, personal journal).
+ Plan to spend at least two hours in the presence of the Almighty God, no matter how hard the devil will fight you. Some of the first things you may notice right when you start your special time are distractions. Distractions are the “stuff,” external or internal, that is presented in our consciousness and tend to draw our attention from the presence of the God. Noises, temperature, hunger, thoughts about tomorrow’s responsibilities, and thoughts of “I wonder if I am doing this retreat right” can all be distractions. Don’t worry if that happens, for you are on your way to start a very special time with God.
+ Spent about 10 minutes in silence ask God to guide you through His Holy Spirit.
+ At times the distraction will press you until you deal with it in a temporary kind of way. It is not uncommon to find yourself remembering tasks and responsibilities that have been on your mind. In that case, pour out all your thoughts, and feelings before God almighty, writing down all your distraction will help you get rid of it. (15 min)
+ Read your favorite psalm or bible passage (10 min)
+ Read your personal spiritual journal and all the comment you wrote throughout the week. Communicate all your burdens and issues with God, it could be issues you need to attend to in your relationship with God? Are there areas of guidance that you might want to bring before the Lord during this time together? Are there special joys you want to celebrate with the Lord, even remind him of the all the faithful attempts you have made in your journey with Him? (30 min)
+ In a prayer cry out your favorite psalm or hymen spend this time praising the Lord almighty your way. (20 Min)
+ Be still and silent and let God speaks to your soul.
+ Spend the rest of the time reading a whole entire book of the bible.
+ Spend a little while re-collecting your thoughts from the time. The Lord will give you guidance it is good to enjoy this time with Jesus, but remember, his kindness leads to repentance. Don’t ignore his invitation; consider specific responses to the Spirit’s call upon your life.
Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t feel filled or satisfied, remind yourself that it does not mean your retreat was not fruitful, it is just because your soul is really thirsty and needs time and perseverance to quench this thirst.
+ Conclude with a prayer.

Scripture Reading – John 7:3-8 

But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
Therefore Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. You got to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.”

Devotional
Jesus moved slowly, not striving or rushing. He patiently waited through his adolescent and young adult years to reveal himself as the Messiah. Even then, he did not rush to be recognized. He waited patiently for his Father’s timing during his short ministry. Why is it then that we hate “slow” when God appears to delight in it? Eugene Peterson offers us at least two reasons:

I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands of my time are proof to myself and to all who will notice – that I am important. If I go into a doctor’s office and find there is no one waiting, and I see through a half-open door the doctor reading a book, I wonder if he’s any good.

Such experiences affect me. I live in a society in which crowded schedules and harassed conditions are evidence of importance, so I develop a crowded schedule and harassed conditions. When others notice, they acknowledge my significance, and my vanity is fed.

I am busy because I am lazy. I let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself. It was a favorite theme of C.S. Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and direction, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us.

Question to Consider
 What is one step you can take today to slow down and live more attentively to the voice of Jesus today?

Prayer
LORD, grant me the grace to do one thing at a time today, without rushing or hurrying. Help me to savor the sacred in all I do, be it large or small. By the Holy Spirit within me, empower me to pause today as I move from one activity to the next. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Friday Evening
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the LORD to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Devotional
The Bible does not spin the flaws and weaknesses of its heroes. Abraham lied. Hosea’s wife was a prostitute. Peter rebuked God! Noah got drunk. Jonah was a racist. Jacob lied. John Mark deserted Paul. Elijah burned out. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal. Thomas doubted. Moses had a temper. Timothy had ulcers. Even David, on of God’s most beloved friend, committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. Yet all these people send the same message: that every human being on earth, regardless of their gifts and strengths, is weak, vulnerable, and dependent on God and others.
The pressure to present an image of ourselves as strong and spiritually “together” hovers over most of us. We feel guilty for not measuring up; for not making the grade. We forget that all of us are human and frail.
The apostle Paul struggled with God not answering his prayers and his “thorn in the flesh.” Nevertheless, he thanked God for his brokenness, knowing that without it, he would have been arrogant, “conceited” apostle. He learned, as we all must, that Christ’s power is made perfect only when we are weak.

Question to Consider
 How might brokenness or weakness in your life today present an opportunity for God’s power to be demonstrated?

Prayer
Father, the notion of admitting to myself and to others my weaknesses and failures is very difficult. LORD, I am weak. I am dependent on you. You are God and I am not. Help me embrace you work in me. And may I be able to say, like Paul, “when I am weak (broken), then I am strong” In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Luke 10:38-42 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the LORD’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “LORD, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the LORD answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Devotional 

Mary and Martha represent two approaches to the Christian life.Martha is actively serving Jesus, but she is missing Jesus. She is busy in the “doing” of life. Her life is pressured and filled with distractions. Her duties have become disconnected from her love for Jesus. Martha’s problems, however, go beyond her busyness. I suspect that if Martha were to sit at the feet of Jesus, she would still be distracted with everything on her mind. Her inner person is touchy, irritable, and anxious.

Mary, on the other hand, is sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him. She is “being” with Jesus, enjoying intimacy with him, loving him, and taking pleasure in his presence. Her life has one center of gravity – Jesus. I suspect that if Mary were to help with the many household chores, she would not be worried or upset. Why? Her inner person has slowed down enough to focus on Jesus and to center he life on him.
Our goal is to love God with our whole being, to be consistently conscious of God through our daily life – whether we are stopped like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, or active like Martha, taking care of the tasks of life.

Question to Consider 

What things are “worrying” and “upsetting” you as you begin this day?

Prayer 

Help me, O LORD, to be still and wait patiently for you (Psalm 37:7). I offer to you each of my anxieties and worries this day. Teach me to be prayerfully attentive and to rest in you as I enter into the many activities of this day. In Jesus’ name, amen
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Thursday Midday

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading – Psalm 62:5-8

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O People;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

Devotional 

David, a man after God’s own heart, beautifully models the seamless integration of a full emotional life with a profound contemplative life with God. He trusts in the LORD, pouring out his struggles, fears and anguish over the lies being said about him.
In The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman summarize why awareness of our feelings is so important to our relationship with God.

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God … Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice … However, we often turn a deaf ear – through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.

Question to Consider 

What are you angry about today? Sad about? Afraid of? Pour out your response before God, trusting in him as David did.

Prayer 

LORD, like David I often feel like a leaning wall, a tottering fence that is about to be knocked down! So many forces and circumstances seem to be coming against me. Help me LORD to find rest in you and to take shelter in you as my fortress. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Wednesday Evening
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Matthew 16:21-23 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
“Never, LORD!” he said.  “This shall never happen to you!”  Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Devotional The apostle Peter had a flaming heart for Jesus but rash, proud, he was also immature and inconsistent.  His impulsiveness and stubbornness are evident throughout the gospels.  Yet Jesus patiently leads him to an internal crucifixion of his self-will in order that he might experience genuine resurrection life and power.

When I am still, compulsion (the busyness that Hilary of Tours called “a blasphemous anxiety to do God’s work for him”) gives way to compunction (being pricked or punctured).  That is, God can break through the many layers with which I protect myself, so that I can hear his Word and be poised to listen…

I can mistake the flow of my adrenaline for the moving of the Holy Spirit; I can live in the illusion that I am ultimately in control of my destiny and my daily affairs…

French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal observed that most of our human problems come because we don’t know how to sit still in our room for an hour.

-Leighton Ford

Question to Consider What might be one way your “busyness” blocks you from listening and communing intimately with the living God?
Prayer
LORD, forgive me for running my life without you today.  I offer my anxieties to you now – as best I can.  Help me to be still, to surrender your will, and to rest in your loving arms.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Tuesday Midday
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Devotional At the end of the third century in the deserts of Egypt, North Africa, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. Christian men and women began to flee the cities and villages to see God in the desert. They discerned how easy it was to lose one’s soul in the entanglements and manipulations found in society, so they pursued God in a radical way by moving to the desert. They became known as the Desert Fathers.
They saw the world:
…as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life…These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster…They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.
Question to Consider How do you hear the words of the apostle John today: “Do not love the world or anything in the world” (1 John 2:15)?
Prayer LORD, I need you to show me how to “create a desert” in the midst of my full, active life in order to be with you. Cleanse me from the pressures, illusions, and pretenses that confront me today that my life may serve as a gift for those around me.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Monday Morning

Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Mark 11:15-17

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them he said, “Is it not written: “’My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Devotional Jesus’ intense anger and overturning of tables in the temple courts ought to make us gasp. He knows that if we don’t get to God, invaluable treasures will be lost or obscured. We lose the space where we experience God’s unfailing love and incredible forgiveness. We lose an eternal perspective on what is important and what is not. We lose compassion. We gain the world but lose our souls (Mark 8:36-37)

Be Free For God
I have a need
of such clearance
as the Savior effected in the temple of Jerusalem
a riddance of clutter
of what is secondary
that blocks the way
to the all-important central emptiness
which is filled
with the presence of God alone.
-Jean Danielou
Question to Consider How would you describe “what is secondary” in your life, the thing that might be “blocking the way” to experiencing God?
PrayerLORD, help me to see how much I lose when I lose you. My perspective on my life and all of life gets distorted when I don’t make space for you, obscuring your love for me. Your love is better than life and, truly, I long for more tastes of that love. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Monday EveningSilence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – 1 Samuel 15:22-23But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
Devotional Saul, the first king of Israel, did not know much about silence or listening to God. Like David, he was gifted, anointed, and a successful military/political leader. Yet we never see him seeking to be with God like David. In this passage, Samuel the prophet reprimands Saul for doing many religious acts (i.e. offering burnt offerings and sacrifices) but to quieting himself enough to listen, or “to heed” God (v.22)
We all must take the time to be silent and to contemplate, especially those who live in big cities like London and New York, where everything moves so fast…I always begin my prayer in silence for it is in silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence – we need to listen to God because it’s not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul – as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul – and it brings you closer to God. It also gives you a clean and pure heart. A clean heart can see God, can speak to God, and can see the love of God in others.
-Mother Teresa
Question to Consider How could you make more room in your life for silence in order to listen to God?
PrayerDe-clutter my heart, O God, until I am quiet enough to hear you speak out of the silence. Help me in these few moments to stop, to listen, to wait, to be still, to allow your presence to envelop me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

Read Psalm 34:17-19

When the righteous cry for help, theLordhears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18TheLordis near tothe brokenhearted
and savesthe crushed in spirit.
19Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but theLorddelivers him out of them all.

Why has our generation surrendered to the warfare of our hearts? We put effort upon effort in our quest for a holy life, and find it to be in vain at the end. Are we living a lie? Or do we simply not know the way? This rollercoaster of a relationship with God cannot suffice any longer. The question we must ask ourselves is not whether or not we are doing enough, but if we are offering enough. Are we ignoring the pink elephant in the room that is our pain? Trying to do our best to get through to the other side without acknowledging any affects of our hurt? Do we not trust that our father can ‘deliver us out of them all’ as it says in the Psalm? There are times that we may not even know of our internal complexities. This new campaign, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, will unravel for us that which we have chosen to burry out of fear and the impact of living a blinding emotionally unhealthy life. This Revelation is not only knowledge based, but God has spoken it to us through the power of his resurrection that will carry out our progress through the spirit of these holy 50 days.

For Kids: Imagine you are having a hard time learning a subject in school. You feel like you are the only one who is having a hard time and you want to give up because it is too hard. Your teacher, though, sees you struggling, and he offers to give you special lessons in the subject. You begin to understand everything, and now you also understand that you are very special to the teacher. This is what God did for us when He made us a special people and called us into His light. Write down a time in your life where you learned not to give up because God is helping you, and where you saw how special you are to Him.

Prayer: I thank You, my Lord Jesus Christ, for the great love You have for me. Thank You for dying on behalf of me, nailing my sins to the cross, and rising again. Through Your resurrection, I have a new life and I have hope. Any troubles that come my way will not take away my joy, because I know that I am favored by You, and I know that I am royal, holy, and special to You. Remind me of this every day, so that I can glorify You and proclaim Your resurrection to others who have no hope.

Passage: Ephesians 1:15-2:3
15Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,16do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,19and what isthe exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power20which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seatedHimat His right hand in the heavenlyplaces,21far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. 22And He put allthingsunder His feet, and gave Himto behead over allthingsto the church,23which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. 1And youHe made alive,who were dead in trespasses and sins,2in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,3among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Devotion: Jesus died on the cross in order to give us a rich and glorious life with Him. We each have the same spirit inside of us that Jesus used to raise Himself from the dead, and we must therefore allow this spirit to work inside of us by resurrecting us to live this kingly lifestyle. Life as the child of a king is very different than life as a hopeless sinner; what are the riches that God promises will come with this glorious life?
Journal Topic: Write in your journal about how you can use the power of Christ’s resurrection to live a glorious life with Him each day.
For Kids: Imagine someone told you that you could become a prince/princess for one day. God gives us the privilege to become His royal children every day of our lives but we often don’t act like it. How can we change our behavior to show that we are living as princes and princesses in God’s kingdom?
Prayer: Our Lord, the King of Kings, we thank You for the great sacrifice You offered to us on the cross. You granted us the power of Your resurrection which we can use daily in order to attain the riches of the glorious life which You promised us. Grant us the spirit of wisdom that we may know what God is calling us to use this power in each day of our lives. Amen.