Sept 15 week devotional pts

Sunday-Ps. 14  is an assault on an age that seems to neglect God and moral standards. Please note well that God is called a refuge of the poor, not the scourge of the poor. In our time, the loudest voices about a godless world also seem to be the most callous toward the claims of the poor on society. Where do you notice the effect of a godless age in 2013 here?

Monday-"God of all calm...in the midst of turmoil give me hope that again I will live a day with little anxiety, like the day we spent by the sea when the waves washed in washed out washed in again and cleansed this troubled mind. God of all calm, give me hope." (Louise Glen-Lee) What elements of anxiety need to be washed from your life today? Where do you crave a little less anxiety in your life?

Tuesday-I am struggling with the president’s engagement with a Syrian strike. On one hand, I have to consider the pacifist response as a Christian. On the other hand, I do not see it as responsible for Christians to try to impose that belief in a public sphere. The church’s traditional response to this issue is the just war criteria for public acts of violence, so that the church itself could pursue a pacifist posture internally. How do you try to balance the peace of Christ with the world full of bloodshed?

Wednesday-One way we can approach Sabbath is by making an analogy to cruises. A curise is designed to linmit the hassles of life, to give adults a sense that they are being taken care of.  A cruise takes away a lot of the choices that sometimes weigh us down. The choices we do have are for our recreation (re-creation) and restoration. Sabbath places our sense of effort into the hands of god and tells us to rest for a while and to enjoy life.

Thursday- “If the Lord is indeed our shepherd, then everything goes topsy-turvy. Losing becomes finding and crying becomes laughing. The last become first and the weak become strong. Instead of life being done in by death in the end as we always supposed, death is done in finally by life in the end. If the Lord is our host at the great feast, then the sky is the limit.”(F. Beuchner, Listening to your Life p. 196) where do you discover the great reversal in life with Christ, in priorities, in time, in interests, in values? 

Friday-Money worries drain me. they sap the energy right out of me. then, I make matters worse by beating myself up about financial mistakes or the small luxuries I permit myself. Within relationships, money troubles can often disturb the most peaceful of relationships. I am not a particularly acquisitive person, but my trust in making ends meet tends to melt whne faced with a real shortfall. How do you handle money worries? Do you pernmit god to enter into your musings?

Saturday-Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions, beneath our religion or lack of it, we are all vulnerable both to the storm without and to the storm within."
( F. Buechner "Telling The Truth") Lately, we are so focused on seeing the good within, even the divine within, that we neglect the truth that things are rarely calm and serene within. Indeed evil lurks there as well. What storms within and without threaten your life balance?