VISION 2012 @SVA
Are you ready for VISION 2012…start praying for this weekend and this year, it’s time to get connected-get involved-and get going…God is on the move 🙂
See you at SVA 9 & 11 Â www.svaonline.org
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Michalangelo: A Sonnet
I stumbled upon this sonnet written by Michelangelo (and translated by William Wordsworth) today. Finding a small God-space free of distractions, I discovered a gentle reminder to ask God to breathe His life, thoughts and passions into my soul, and to unbind my tongue so that I might have the power to sing a new song to God…from His perspective. MC
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A Sonnet
The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed,
If Thou the Spirit give by which I pray;
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of it’s native self can nothing feed;
Of good and pious works Thou are the seed
That quickens only where Thou say’st it may.
Unless Thou show to us Thy own true way,
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead;
Do Thou then breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred
That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind.
That I may have the power to sing to Thee,
And sound Thy praises everlastingly!
Transformation & Information
"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
Powerful Prayers vol. ix: “Empty Me” Loder
I have just returned from leading a 3 day Sacred Space retreat. My mind all abuzz with the epiphanies the retreatants were having, the God-moves that took place in the quiet corners of people's soul, and the rhythm of the Divine Hours being practiced by the monks at the Abbey that we experienced as we quietly slipped in and out of their practice… receiving something they had no idea they were giving.
This morning, as my spirit honed in on this particular prayer to breathe into my soul, it seemed to speak about all that God was doing in and through the men and women who were at Sacred Space…read and pray this slowly and ask the Spirit to illuminate the parts that your heart needs…
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Empty Me…
Gracious and Holy One,
Creator of all things
and of emptiness,
I come to you
full of much that clutters and distracts,
stifles and burdens me,
and makes me a burden to others.
Empty me now
of gnawing dissatisfactions,
of anxious imaginings,
of fretful preoccupations,
of nagging prejudices,
of old scores to settle,
and of the arrogance of being right.
Empty me
of the ways I unthinkingly think of myself as powerless,
as a victim,
as determined by sex, age, race,
as being less than I am,
or as other than yours.
Empty me
of the disguises and lies
in which I hide myself from other people
and from my responsibility
for my neighbors and for the world.
Hollow out in me a space
in which I will find myself,
find peace and a whole heart,
a forgiving spirit and holiness,
the springs of laughter,
and the will to reach boldly
for abundant life for myself
and the whole human family.
Ted Loder
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Rumination…
This prayer is full of ruminatorial opportunities! (but I'll focus on just one)
The line that first drew me in was, "Empty me now of…the arrogance of being right."
I wondered, '
"what would happen in our lives if we took 30 days and decided that we would choose to be kind instead of fighting to prove that we are right?"
How would we handle the tension in our souls that worships the god of rightness more than the God of love.
Could I possibly see and believe that I can choose to be kind over being right without having to give up on what I believe…yes I think I could, but that would require a mind like Christ's.
He was able to be 100% right in every situation when the people around Him were so lost and wrong, yet love and kindness flowed from His soul.
I often ask myself, "even if I prove myself to be absolutely right in this moment, does it really have an eternal significance?"
Most often it does not, and my need to be right can easily take second place to my call to be kind and demonstrate love without really giving up anything that matters, and gain much that does through kindness.
Our need to always be right lurks in the shadows of most all conflict…
Our need to always be right reveals the insecurities that fill our identity…
Our need to always be right becomes a god that we fashion and dress in religiosity and truth justifications…
Our need to always be right keeps us from enjoying the people in our lives…
30 days…can you do it…will you allow yourself to enter into and feel and become aware of the tension that you are experiencing with a need to be right…
When you sense the Holy Spirit placing some Divine Duck Tape over your mouth again and again, let me encourage you to laugh and smile at yourself as you see how often you need to apply the filter. It's okay, it is all a part of the process and journey of becoming, and on the way, your kindness just might unleash the soul of someone who desperately needs it.
Dei Gratia,
Monty