Prayer for Reconciliation

June 20, 2013

Today’s Reflection

RECONCILING GOD, I don’t like to believe that I actually have enemies, but I acknowledge that I am not in the best of relations with all my friends and acquaintances. I’m thinking today of ( ). Today I accept Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” as applying to this person. Forgive me where I have failed to be a neighbor. Guide me into wys of living that will make our relationship more like what you want it to be.

As I do this close to home, I turn my heart to the nations of the world, asking that even though I live in a world where I’m told I have “friends” and “enemies,” that I will reject such an evaluation in favor of realizing that, in Christ, I only have “brothers” and “sisters.” I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

- Steve Harper
A Pocket Guide to Prayer

From A Pocket Guide to Prayer by Steve Harper. Copyright © 2010 by Steve Harper. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.

Today’s Question

Pray today’s prayer. Share your thoughts.

Today’s Scripture

O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

Psalms 43:3, 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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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

Share

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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 [...]

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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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