Community

June 19, 2013

Today’s Reflection

COMMUNITY IS NOT loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: “I’m so lonely; you’re so lonely. Please stay awhile!” Grabbing too easily becomes grasping, and grasping may quickly turn into suffocating closeness. No, community is solitude greeting solitude: “I am the beloved; you are the beloved. Together we can build a home.” Sometimes we are close to each other, and that’s wonderful. Sometimes we don’t feel much love, and that’s hard. But we can be faithful. We can build a home together and create space for God and for the children of God.

Within the discipline of community are the disciplines of forgiveness and celebration. Forgiveness and celebration are what make marriage, friendship, or any other form of community possible.

- Henri J. M. Nouwen

A Spirituality of Living

From page 36 of A Spirituality of Living by Henri J. M. Nouwen, edited by John S. Mogabgab. Copyright © 2011 The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust. All rights reserved. Used by permission. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.

Today’s Question

What attributes do you look for in community? Share your thoughts.

Today’s Scripture

By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

Psalms 42:8, NRSV

This Week: pray for those who feel overwhelmed by life. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section below.

Did You Know?

Need a Spiritual Retreat? Join us at SOULfeast, the Upper Room’s spiritual retreat at Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center in the beautiful Smoky Mountains, July 14-18, 2013. Come discover how, as the Holy Spirit washes over us, this powerful presence brings us alive to God, community, transformation, and missions in the here and now. For more information, visit soulfeast.upperroom.org.

Saints, Inc.:

This week we remember:
Ephrem (June 18).

Lectionary Readings

(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

Sponsored by Upper Room Ministries ®. Copyright © 2013, a ministry of GBOD | PO Box 340004 | Nashville, TN 37203-0004 | USA

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What Seems Impossible

June 18, 2013

Today’s Reflection

WHAT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE to us is possible with God. The parameters of our thinking or the limitations of our imagination do not confine God. Who are we to place limits on what God can do?

I created the heavens and the earth, God says.
I created light and darkness, God says.
I breathed life into humanity, and you became a living soul, God says.
I roll away the stone, and ocmmand you to rise up and walk, God says.

Everything is possible to the one who believes.

- Kenneth H. Carter Jr

“Pray for Me”

From pages 31-32 of “Pray for Me”: The Power in Praying for Others by Kenneth H. Carter Jr. Copyright © 2011 by Kenneth H. Carter Jr. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.

Today’s Question

Give thanks for the amazing presence of God in the world. Share your thoughts.

Today’s Scripture

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
Psalms 42:1, NRSV

This Week: pray for those who feel overwhelmed by life. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section below.

Did You Know?

Need a Spiritual Retreat? Join us at SOULfeast, the Upper Room’s spiritual retreat at Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center in the beautiful Smoky Mountains, July 14-18, 2013. Come discover how, as the Holy Spirit washes over us, this powerful presence brings us alive to God, community, transformation, and missions in the here and now. For more information, visit soulfeast.upperroom.org.

Saints, Inc.:

This week we remember:
Ephrem (June 18).

Lectionary Readings

(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

Sponsored by Upper Room Ministries ®. Copyright © 2013, a ministry of GBOD | PO Box 340004 | Nashville, TN 37203-0004 | USA

Share

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Fill My Spirit

June 17, 2013

Today’s Reflection O GOD whose mercy is upon generation after generation, fill my spirit with the joy of your Spirit! Grant me the gift of joyous expectation, seeing your coming in a million ways and responding with blessing, with leaping, and with joy. Amen. – Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki – Disciplines 2000 From page 371 of [...]

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Our Worth in God’s Eyes

June 16, 2013

Today’s Reflection ONE OF THE GREATEST OBSTACLES facing us on the road to spiritual formation is our lack of appreciation for our infinite worth in the eyes of God. No matter what faults and failings may hamper us on our way home to our Father’s house, God loves and forgives and welcomes us. – Entering [...]

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A Prayer for the Poor*

June 15, 2013

Today’s Reflection JESUS, YOU SAID that the poorwould be with us always—and they are here.On street corners in blistering heat and in tent cities.They are here—women and children,young folks and old,some displaced suddenly,others who slid slowly into the abyssthat hides them from us. Here they are, Jesus, hungry and thirsty,in need of a doctor and [...]

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Hunger for God

June 14, 2013

Today’s Reflection THE HUMAN IMAGINATION hungers for substance, for meaning, for God. If it encounters a world without meaning, it slowly starves for lack of anything to chew on. The “organs of meaning” must have something to eat. Feeding the God-hungry imagination is, I believe, precisely the church’s task in spiritual formation. – Sarah Arthur [...]

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Faith and the Storyteller

June 13, 2013

Today’s Reflection IS THERE A significant difference in storytelling in the faith community? Yes, in many ways there are significant differences. Primarily we need to look at two areas: the purpose and role of stories in communities of faith; and the faith of the storyteller. …Storytellers in a traditional community serve as culture bearers. Within [...]

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Accepting Responsibility

June 12, 2013

Today’s Reflection WHEN WE FIND ourselves in a difficult situation, blaming others often becomes the easy excuse. “If it were not for my poor upbringing, I could have done better with my life.” “If you hadn’t distracted me, the accident would not have happened.” “If you were more loving, our marriage could have been better.” [...]

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Safe and Secure in God’s Embrace

June 11, 2013

Today’s Reflection GRACIOUS LORD, you are the beginning and ending of all things, my center and my circumference: root and fix me in you in such a way that my soul finds rest in its true home and never stops growing in grace, safe and secure in your loving embrace. Amen. – Paul Wesley Chilcote [...]

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Authentic Discipleship

June 10, 2013

Today’s Reflection JESUS IS HARSH with those who value the trappings and public practice of piety. [See Mark 12:38-40.] In his view, they are hypocrites, more interested in appearances than reality. In Greek, the word for hypocrite means “actor.” Jesus had no use for those who only wanted to playact at faith, dressing up in [...]

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