Today’s Reflection
“DECLARE IT ALL” was the advice of the desert fathers, those radical early Christians who took with great seriousness Jesus’ challenge to transform the heart. Declare it all — every thought, every feeling, every cruel intention, every ignoble desire and holy aspiration.
Don’t be afraid to present anything to God as it comes into awareness, because you are beheld by a comprehending, compassionate love that knows how to heal your distempers.
Everything becomes grist for the mill in spiritual growth, even the hells into which we wander. Some elements will be strengthend, some diminished, but grace can work with it all.
- Robert Corin Morris
Provocative Grace: The Challenge in Jesus’ Words
From page 109 of Provocative Grace: The Challenge in Jesus’ Words by Robert Corin Morris. Copyright © 2006 by Robert Corin Morris. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books.http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
What would you declare this day? Share your thoughts.
Today’s Scripture Reading
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10, NRSV
This Week: pray for someone who feels hopeless. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section below.
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Saints, Inc.:
This week we remember Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (March 20).
Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I pray for those I provoke.
Today I fast until supper. I will starve the things that make me a friend of this world and rely on God’s grace and provenance to give me all my needs.
I LIKE the way you approach fasting. I’ve finally found a way that I feel can work for me.
May God Bless.
Today I would declare my love for Jesus and my thanksgiving for God’s limitless grace.
Because I am unable/ unwilling to actually declare that which is upon my heart, in this community of travellers along life’s path.
And maybe that is what I am able to declare. That I have a ways to go in trusting.
Lord in your mercy hear my prayers for healing and capacity to trust. Amen.
Heidi,
Would you allow me to pray for you?
Would you check out Upper Room’s Prayer Center? Prayers are by first name and state only. They are usually referred to a covenant prayer group for extended prayer. UR would have only your first name and state. They would have no way of being able to contact you directly.
May God Bless
You can trust me, but I don’t need to know all the details, especially on the “net”. God knows, and I just truly wish you well in all your human “ups and downs”. I feel like you are a friend from “way back when” and I was glad to see your name come up again when it did. I get a lot out of your blog and marvel at “Elmer”.
Kind words, y’all. Thank you both. Connie, I am humbled that you’ve embraced my pachyderms
I never turn down offers of prayer. And I gladly return the favor. These knees have been figuratively calloused for some time now.
Gary– it’s not that big or bad a trust thing, just personal junque like we all have. (Mine is designer junque in a designer trunque.)
Mostly, I refuse to become a part of any Internet ‘tell-all’ fest. The only one Who gets it all– is God.
And I do not believe I am that unusual in that.
I am transparent to God. He knows my every thought before I do.
It’s me I try to fool. I need to become transparent to myself, too. When I’m not transparent, I block my relationship with God.
Being transparent to others is a MAJOR difficulty for me. But, it can block opportunities for God to be in relationship with others.
A PRAYER FOR SOMEONE FEELING HOPELESS
Dear Jesus.
Just now I hold up to you my brothers and sisters who are feeling hopeless. So use me that where there is despair, I might bring hope; where there is hopelessness, I might bring your holy shield of sacred peace; where there is the darkest night of the soul, your light will so shine through me to bring warming, nourishing sunshine.
Hear this my prayer I ask in your most sacred name.
I pray for all who do not know, accept, respect, praise, worship, and love Jesus with all their heart, strength, and mind that they turn around and come to know, accept, respect, praise, worship, and love Jesus with all their heart, strength, and mind. One day every knee will bend at the name of Jesus.