Wednesday, February 29, 2012

For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 51:16-17

     It seems we put a great deal of energy into trying to figure out how to please God.  We create lists of "shoulds" that will put us in God's grace...we "should" be at church every week, we "should" pray every morning, we "should" be grateful for everything we have.  And while all those things are good things to have and do, they will not earn us a place at God's table or earn us God's grace.  Our shoulds will never bring us peace they will only be bricks added to the wall that separates us from God.  Instead of leading us to who we are, they lead us to a belief of who we "should" be.  My friends, God does not want our deeds, God wants our hearts, minds, and souls.

     As humans, this means that God wants the broken parts too;  for there is not one among us who is not broken.  If we are living, we will be broken and scarred; for living means taking risks.  But that doesn't matter to God because God wants a relationship with us that is honest and real.  Our guilt and shame is not pleasing to God, our humble, honest, willing heart is what pleases God.  God wants us to bring our whole selves into the relationship so that our brokenness may be healed and be used to share the power of God's love and grace with our world.   Author Brennan Manning puts it this way "Anyone who God uses significantly is always deeply wounded. We are, each and every one of us, insignificant people whom God has called and graced to use in a significant way...On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars".

     Today, let us not hide from our brokenness but embrace it and bring it to God.  Let us make the conscious effort to remove the "shoulds" from our thinking and rest in the assurance that being who we are, at this moment, is enough. 

Prayer:  God of grace and mercy;   We are broken - heal us.  We are healed - use us. 
    

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Your God knows what you need before you ask .

Matthew 6:8

Do you remember Carnac the Magnificent?  The beloved character, created by comedian Johnny Carson, used to entertain late night audiences with his ability to announce the answer to a question placed in a sealed envelope before seeing it. The combination of the comic answers and the mystical qualities used to get them made it a favored skit by viewers.  

Let's face it.  We humans often expect one another to know the answers before we even ask the questions.  We hope and often assume that what is going on in our own mind is easily accessible to those we love.  Therefore, we shouldn't have to explain what we're thinking or feeling, our loved ones should be able to figure that out on their own.   Unfortunately, when we live with those expectations in our human relationships, the results are not usually comical.  But we can live with these expectations in our relationship with God.

God knows our heart.  God knows our minds.  God is with us at every step of our journey whether we choose to acknowledge that presence or not.  God knows what we need before we do. 

The beauty of this reality is that when we walk and talk with God through prayer, we don't need to have beautiful words, organized thoughts, or proper etiquette.  We can come before God as we are at the moment.  We may be ecstatic with joy, burdened by pain,  impatient with anticipation, frozen in grief, or simply unaware of what we need, when we come to God in prayer.  That's all ok.  God is only seeking the relationship with us that comes through prayer;  an intimate relationship that reminds us we are always  loved and never alone.   A relationship that helps us to become all that we were created to be. 

 Today, let us spend time in prayer deeping our relationship with God. Let us give ourselves permission to be quiet, in the moment, and to trust that God knows what we need, and to listen for God's answer.

Prayer:  Gracious God, we come to you today with the needs in our hearts.  Some of these needs we have words for, some we do not - but we trust that you know them all.  Help us to be still and to rest in the comfort of your loving arms knowing that you are God and will provide everything we need. 

Monday, February 27, 2012

Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy

Leviticus 19:2

     Imagine.  Imagine what life would be like if we saw ourselves as "holy people who have sinned" instead of "sinners who are trying to become holy".  Imagine how the world would be different if we treated one another and all of God's creation as holy.  Imagine.

     We have been created in the image of God.  God is holy and consequently, we too, are holy.  Yes, indeed, we are human and through our power to choose, we act in ways that do not honor our holiness or the holiness of others a/k/a sin.  But our choices in behavior do not change our innate being.  A man by the name of Kent Wilson puts it this way " We are holy in our standing before God, but we are only progressively becoming holy in our thinking, our actions, and our dispositions as we struggle with sin each day."  The challenge in our spiritual journey is to learn to live into the holiness that God has gifted to us. 

     Jesus is the divine gift that will help us on this journey.  His life is an example of how we can live into our holiness, how we can match our thoughts and actions with who we are.  He shows us how to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbors.  His story shows the struggles of being human and the gift of being one with God.  His death and resurrection shows us the depth of his love for us and the promise that we will not have to journey alone.

     Today, let us hold tight to the knowledge that we are holy.  Let us strive today to see this truth, grasp it, believe it, and show it to the world.  Then we won't have to image the change in the world, we will see it.

Prayer:  Holy God, you have created us in your image, yet we so often forget that we are created holy.  Help us to look at ourselves and our world with a new perspective;  a perspective that sees first the love in which we were created and invited to live.  Then, God, guide us into acting out that holiness so that the world may also know of your unending, freely given, powerful love.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,

Psalm 25:4

     Mazes have been a source of entertainment for generations.  Made in gardens or corn fields, these intricate and interconnected pathways can provide hours of entertainment, while at the same time invoking doubt and confusion. We can get lost, feel like we will never find the end, and then rejoice when we reach our goal.

  God’s ways can sometimes feel like a maze.  We don't always see a clear path.  Choices  abound and our own ego clouds our judgement.  When we look forward, we see what appears to be a wall stopping our progression.  But when we arrive at the wall, we see that it is actually part of a new path leading us toward the goal.  Being open to learning and trusting in a new way, in God's way, is the goal of a spiritual life.  But we first need to realize that our ways and God's ways are not always the same.  We need to become teachable.  Just as the psalmist acknowledges his ignorances and asks to be taught, so too can we.  We can join him in the journey, through our failures and our success, and then rejoice with him in a new way of being.

     Today, let us ask God to open our hearts and our minds so that we may become teachable.  Let us welcome the education of God's ways and paths for our lives trusting that the love God has for us will sustain us through unknown.

Prayer:  God of love and patience, we come before you today knowing that our ways are not always your ways.  Help us to set aside our egos and open our hearts so that we may be taught your life-giving and life-affirming ways.  Keep us steadfast on your path trusting that you will be with us, loving us and sustaining us, every step of the way.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.

Luke 5:32

    

     Mother Teresa is a modern day saint.  A woman known for her faith and her endless work of bringing the gospel to the poor and sick of Calcutta.  One day a man was visiting Calcutta and had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa.  He told her how he longed for the clarity she seemed to possess and asked if she would pray that he would have the same clarity in his life.  She laughed and said "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust.  So I will pray that you trust God." 

    What a comfort it is to realize that even the saints of our day need to rely on God.  If there is anyone to point to as one of the truly righteous people, it would be her.  Yet, it is her wisdom in her awareness of her humanness and need for repentence and her trust that God has indeed redeemed her that she is able to work to spread the truth of the Gospel to the world.  Trust is her wisdom.

     To trust in God so completely, is an enormous challenge.  Our egos like to be in the driver's seat, to run the show.  However, because of our humanness, when we're in the driver's seat, we will inevitably scratch the paint or crash the car.  But there is hope in this Gospel today - Jesus came for us - -  the not-so-perfect, saint-in-training, often times called "sinner".  Jesus is calling us into relationship with him so that repentance and reconciliation may occur.  He's not seeking the saint, he's seeking the sinner.

     Today, let us live in trust.  Let us seek to discover our imperfections and bring them to our loving God knowing that they will be forgiven and we are redeemed.  Let us remember, in the words of Oscar Wilde, that "every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

 Prayer:  God of grace and mercy, we come to you today in our humanness.  We give you thanks for seeking us out; for loving us just as we are at this moment in time. We bring you our imperfections and ask that you heal them and teach us the way of trust.  Help us to gain the wisdom we need to share the truth of your love, mercy, and justice to all of your children.

Friday, February 24, 2012

A clean heart create for me, God; renew within me a steadfast spirit.

Psalm 51:12

     In the middle of the thrift store is a table.  It’s a sturdy table, a solid table, with plenty of life left.  But it’s an ugly table. You can see by the chips in the paint that it’s been at least 3 different colors in it’s lifetime.  Some children have left their mark on it with permanent ink and others have carved an important number on the top when they could not find a pen. It’s pretty beat up but you see it’s potential and you bring it home.  As you strip the paint layer by layer, the marks begin to disappear and the carvings become less visible.  You discover that you have not acquired a piece of junk, you have acquired a treasure - a solid oak table with a beauty you never imagined.

     Sometimes we feel like the table in the store - chipped and carved, our beauty long gone.  We may feel permanently marked by our past, covered with layers of emotions and experiences and we wonder if we even know our true selves anymore.  There is One who knows the beauty that lies beneath and is more than willing to bring us to our created state, that One is God.   As we develop or strengthen our relationship with our Creator, we will begin to appreciate the gifts we've been given that don't always seem apparent.  We will find the courage to change those parts of us that cause us, and those we love, marks.   We will be able to live in the assurance that at our core - we are beautiful and holy and that NOTHING can change that.  We will discover that we are indeed one of God's treasures and we possess a beauty we've never imagined.  Today, let us seek God with a desire to be restored and renewed, living as the person we have been created to be. 

Prayer:  Loving God, you have created us in your image - holy and wonderful.  Sometimes we feel that life has changed us so that our holiness no longer exists.  Help us to peel back the paint layer by layer, so that with you, we may be renewed and restored to our created state as a child of God,  loved, holy and beautiful. 

Thursday, February 23, 2012

I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.  

Deuteronomy 30:15

We have a choice.  We have always had a choice.  God gifted us this way.  Our ability to choose affects the way things are and the way things will be.  Sometimes, we may make positive, life-giving choices, and other times we make choices that are not positive and not life-giving. It can seem to be a daunting responsibility, but it doesn’t have to be.  If we choose to invite God into our lives and seek God’s guidance in our decision making, we will discover an inner feeling, a nudge, toward the life-giving choice.

Seems simple enough, doesn't it?   Actually it is, it's just not that easy.  You see, to give us the gift of choice, God also gave us a mind, an ego, a heart, instincts, a will  - and none of those are simple.  Add to it the fact that we live in a world with other humans who have the power to chose - and it gets more and more complicated.  It becomes difficult to discern what is the nudge of God and what is the nudge of the rest of it.

This is where prayer is so important. We need to have dedicated time with God, time to ask and question and time to listen.  Time to discover the truth about what God wants for us, not what the world wants for us.  Time to realize and trust the love God has for us,  the forgiveness that is so freely given, the promise of God that if we seek we will find. 

Today, let us make the choice to dedicate ourselves to nurturing our relationship with God, through prayer, trusting that God will indeed guide us to life-giving choices. 

Prayer:  God, you chose us from the beginning and that choice is never-ending.  Help us to choose a relationship with you.  A relationship that will nuture and guide our thoughts and deeds so that we may indeed choose life and good.

Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2012

In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation. 

2 Corinthians 6:2

 

     Invitations are wonderful.  Sometimes they come on fancy paper with embossed writing to join in a celebration at a certain time and place.  Sometimes they are merely a passing thought for a time in the future.  They all, however, are an offer to be in relationship with others.   Dinners, weddings, a walk, a cup of coffee with a friend all provide moments in time in which we can join with another to share our journey.  In our scripture today, we are invited by God to receive the grace that is freely given each and everyone of us.  The grace that will again remind us that we are indeed in a loving, supported, relationship with our Creator.  God wants us to claim, right now, the fact that we are indeed loved, forgiven, and transformed. 

     Today we receive ashes in the sign of the cross - a reminder that we are human and holy, just as Jesus was human and holy.  A reminder that the reconciliation with God has been completed, we need only accept it.  That's not an easy task for us.  We often feel that we need to earn God's grace or be someone different than we are to receive it.  This is simply not the case - God's grace is a gift, a pure gift.  

     Through this Lenten season let us say "yes" to God's invitation of reconcilitation.  Let us seek to find those pieces in our lives that stop us from accepting this gift of grace and sharing it with our world.  It is in acceptance that we will individually be transformed, which will then transform the world.

Prayer:  Creator God, you have made us human and holy.  As we begin our journey through Lent, help us to find all those parts of us that prevent us from accepting your grace, living this truth, and sharing it with the world.