Week of August 26 Devotions

Sunday August 26-Ps.84, today’s reading, speaks of the pleasure of worship. It is a demonstration of how dutiful we have become with worship and the low point of our life in prayer together. Worship is the place where the heart finds a home in this prayer (v.4). The next verse says “happy/blessed are those whose heart is a highway to Zion. Where is your heart such a highway to worship? the we can go from strength to strength (v.7). Monday-Our eldest daughter and new son-in-law came to visit recently. It is hard how empty the nest feels when the company leaves. It helps, but only a bit, to realize that god is as near as our latest breath. We are made for company and companionship. By the same token, we cannot be solitary Christians very easily. We require the interaction of the entire body of Christ. Tuesday-“Not worth the trouble” can be a dangerous phrase. It can be dismissive of a person or a project. It is a judgment that invites disrespect. It could also signal that we don’t want to face something troublesome that we should attend to. On the other hand, it is so valuable in not taking a slight or a wrong to seriously. It could be quite accurate, that we are stressing over something insignificant that is diverting us from a more vital matter. Prayer is a vehicle to help us discern the differences when we notice ehta tphrase issuing forth from us. Wednesday-I’ve been working on the book of the Twelve, the Minor Prophets. Hosea uses a marital metaphor to get at the depth of god’s love for Israel. It then follows that it is useful for trying to get across the depth of hurt when sin intrudes. For God, sin has the feel of adultery in a marriage, a cut to the very core of life together. In Ch. 11, God announces that the divine is beyond mere mortals, so that we cannot expect the divine to fit within human categories. For me, that is one of the great cores of the faith. the ineffable God loves us, mere creatures, to the highest degree imaginable. Thursday-I sometimes forget how crippling anxiety can be. It can take over our thoughts, throw our health into a tailspin, and undermine or relationships. Even when we know that Jesus says that worry does not add an inch to the length of our life, we still worry. Anxiety clouds our judgment. It may even choke off our ability to pray easily. Consider using some calming biblical images when anxious. I tend to picture Jesus in Mark 4 on the stormy sea, saying “peace be still” and using it as a mantra but also as an image of serenity. Friday-I wonder about the history of how treasures in heaven, connected to doing good deeds, turned into a pre-requisite for entry into heaven? We speak of grace as unconditional and unearned, but it seems to be a religious cliché that does not sink in. We insist that God is a cosmic auditor who checks the books of our lives and assigns debits and credits to our actions and maybe inaction, fi we are more sophisticated. Saturday-I talked with a spiritually adept person recently who was castigating herself for not facing hardships in a manner she thought she should. she hoped that the depth of her prayer life and scriptural study would sustain her without feeling the pain and anxiety of a series of tough situations. Anything can be safely placed in the envelope of prayer.