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Benediction Prayer

I have been receiving numerous requests for the Benediction prayer I read last Sunday at SVA. Our Sunday message/conversation was dealing with humility and leadership as we looked through ACTS 21. In the benediction, I read a prayer from a Christmas card that was very powerful…Here it is for those who wanted it, and for those who didn't hear it, enjoy!

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What to Ask God For

I asked God to take away my pride, and God said no. He said it was not for him to take away, but for me to give up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole, and God said, "No, her spirit is already whole. Her body is only temporary."

I asked God to grant me patience, and God said no. He said that patience is the byproduct of tribulation. It isn't granted; it's earned.

I asked God to give me happiness; God said no. He said he gives blessings; happiness is up to me.

I asked God to spare me pain, and God said no. He said I must grow on my own, but he will prune me in order to make me fruitful.

I asked God if he loved me, and God said yes. He gave me his only Son who died for me, and I will be in heaven some day because I believe.

I asked God to help me love others as much as he loves me, and God said, "Ahhh, finally! Now you have the idea."

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Dei Gratia

Monty

 

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Evening Reflection

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The following is a great reflection taken from "A Diary of Private Prayer" by John Baillie.

Breathe deeply and read slowly tonight 🙂

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Almighty God,

In this quiet hour I seek communion with Thee. From the fret and fever of the day's business, from the world's discordant noises, from the praise and blame of men, from confused thoughts and vain imaginations of my own heart, I would now turn aside and seek the quietness of Thy presence. All day long I have toiled and striven: But now, in the stillness of heart and in the clear light of Thine eternity, I would ponder the pattern my life is weaving.

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Spend some time pondering the pattern your life is weaving…today was busy, where do you see God involved in your day? Where did you maybe miss His invitation to you? How will you become more aware of His presence around you tomorrow?

Dei Gratia,

Monty

 

 

 

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Transformation & Information

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"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

2 Cor.5:16-17

"But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit." 

Rom. 7:6

Through the centuries the church has been making the same mistake over and over again as it has defined Christianity by what you know instead of Who you know, or better yet, Who knows you. We've confused information (learning about God) with transformation (being known and recreated by Him in His image, not our own).

When we define Christianity by what we know…it becomes a doing based religion, a treadmill of shoulds and a list of tasks derived from the information we have acquired. That is not the freedom found in being a new creation, or the new way of the Spirit, it is life under the old Law of performance.

There is a big difference between these two dynamics however. As I was thinking about these two realities, the following considerations and contrasts came to mind:

information is finite – transformation is infinite

information improves – transformation creates

information is temporary – transformation is permanent

information is the known – transformation is the unknown

information is safe – transformation is risky

information is predictable – transformation is unpredictable

information requires study – transformation requires trust

information promotes self-sufficiency transformation demands dependence

information breeds familiarity – transformation embraces the unfamiliar

information is inanimate – transformation is alive

information is a noun – transformation is a verb

information takes hold – transformation lets go

information is knowledge – transformation is truth


There is so much more for us to encounter and experience in God, but we must be willing to allow the information to translate into a liiving reality in the graceful grip of God. The journey in and down to the soul-ular level is a journey that will change your life.

It's time to experience being a new creation, and life lived in the new way of the Spirit…if it is a new way, then why do we keep doing the same old things? Perhaps it's time to move from information to transformation.

Dei Gratia,

Monty

 


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The Soul Is Shy: Parker Palmer

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Great piece from Parker Palmers book "Hidden Wholeness" about the soul…MC

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The soul is like a wild animal…tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient:  it knows how to survive in hard places.  I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression.  In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed.  My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die.  That something was my tough and tenacious soul.

Yet despite its toughness, the soul is also shy.  Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around.  If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out.  But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance.  We may see it only briefly and only out of the corner of an eye—but the sight is a gift we will always treasure as an end in itself.

Unfortunately, community in our culture too often means a group of people who go crashing through the woods together, scaring the soul away.  In spaces ranging from congregations to classrooms, we preach and teach, assert and argue, claim and proclaim, admonish and advise, and generally behave in ways that drive everything original and wild into hiding. Under these conditions, the intellect, emotions, will and ego may emerge, but not the soul:  we scare off all the soulful things, like respectful relationships, goodwill, and hope.

The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are.  And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out—a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.

Circles of trust combine unconditional love, or regard, with hopeful expectancy, creating a space that both safeguards and encourages the inner journey.  In such a space, we are freed to hear our own truth, touch what brings us joy, become self-critical about our faults, and take risky steps toward change,–knowing that we will be accepted no matter what the outcome.

 

Hidden Wholenss

By Parker J. Palmer, p. 59, 60.