Sunday-Ps.96 or 97 are slated for this Day-Both are praise psalms. I would suggest re3ading them both in light of Christmas Eve. Consider writing your own Christmas Eve prayer today.
Christmas-Martin Luther-The gospel does not merely teach about the history of Christ. No, it enables all who believe it to receive it as their own, which is the way the gospel operates. Of what benefit would it be to me if Christ had been born a thousand times, and it would daily be sung into my ears in a most lovely manner, if I were never to hear that he was born for me and was to be my very own? If the voice gives forth this pleasant sound, even if it be in homely phrase, my heart listens with joy, for it is a lovely sound which penetrates the soul.
Tuesday-Hell is the absence of people you long for. Emily St. John Mandell,
Wednesday-"Watchfulness is an empowering practice in which we stay present to our experience and root out those thoughts that are depleting and destructive. These thoughts were often referred to as 'demons' in the ancient desert, which indicated a way of understanding the inner and outer forces, temptations, voices, and judgments that lead us away from the heart of God."--- Christine Valters Paintner,
Thursday- “When we recognize that we have limited vision and that our planning minds will only take us so far (and I am someone who loves to plan!), then we can begin to gently release to pressure we put on ourselves to have things turn out a certain way. We may begin to approach life in a more open-hearted way, receiving its gifts rather than grumbling about what we would rather have had happen. There is a much bigger wisdom at work in the wide expanse of night dreams than we can perceive in the light of day.”--- Christine Valters Paintner
Friday-God therefore must appear in the form of a servant. But this servant’s form is not merely something he puts on, like the beggar’s cloak, which, because it is only a cloak, flutters loosely and betrays the king. No, it is his true form. For this is the unfathomable nature of boundless love, that it desires to be equal with the beloved; not in jest, but in truth. Kierkegaard
Saturday-Martin Luther
There are many who are enkindled with dreamy devotion, and when they hear of the poverty of Christ, they are almost angry with the citizens of Bethlehem. They denounce their blindness and ingratitude, and think, if they had been there, they would have shown the Lord and his mother a more kindly service and would not have permitted them to be treated so miserably. But they do not look by their side to see how many of their fellow humans need their help, and which they ignore in their misery. Who is there upon earth that has no poor, miserable, sick, erring ones around him? Why does he not exercise his love to those? Why does he not do to them as Christ has done to him?
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