Today is Tuesday, December 11, 2018. Second week of Advent.
Day 22,188
Fourteen days until Christmas!! Two weeks!
“I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th US President, 1890-1969
The Quotations Page
The word of the day is precariat, “People whose employment, income, and living standards are insecure or precarious; such people considered collectively as a social class.”
I really don’t have much of anything to say, this morning, so I’ll head on into the devotional.
TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL AND PRAYERS
All Scriptures are from the ESV unless otherwise noted
It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
Psalm 92:1
Today I am grateful:
1. For the ability to examine myself and see where I am lacking in spirit
2. That what I discover when I do number one doesn’t cause me to hide in a corner
3. That God gives me grace to overcome such lacking
4. For humility, even though it hurts
5. For people who encourage me and love me anyway
What’s all that about, you might ask? Well, as part of the Renovare Book Club, we have begun reading a book called Glittering Vices, which is a series of meditations on the infamous seven deadly sins. As I read the introduction, I was introduced to a “vice” that I had never heard of again. The author was reading St. Thomas Aquinas and discovered a vice called pusillanimity. I’m not sure I can even say that. She defined it as “smallness of soul.” The main dictionaries define it as cowardliness. That’s a tough one.
But here’s how Rebecca DeYoung defines it. I’m not quoting exactly here, because my book is in another room. But it’s shrinking back on what God has called you to do, judging your own abilities to be inadequate and not trusting on His ability to give you whatever you need to do it.
Yes, folks, I am guilty of pusillanimity. I have a lifelong history of that vice. Am I cowardly? Perhaps that is true. What is to be done about it? I don’t know yet, I haven’t gotten that far in the book. But to be aware of it and accepting that it is true is a huge step. I’ll keep you posted.
“Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,
Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.
Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all;
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin,
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.
Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by a man came death,
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.”
(The Book of Common Prayer, adapted from 1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Romans 6:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22)
. . . that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Jeremiah 31:3
The passage from Ephesians is probably my favorite prayer of Paul’s. I may have mentioned this before on here. I love to pray those verses for people I know, especially the leadership of our church.
How many times have you gone through a difficult time in your life, only to find out, when you come through on the other side, that people have been praying for you the whole time? I, along with several others from our little church family, have been called to be those people. That is part of what “intercessory prayer” is about. We are here to do just that for anyone who needs it. That’s why, every morning, right after I publish this blog entry, I add another entry to Facebook.
“What can I pray for you today?”
Some days I get many responses. Some days I get none or few. There is almost always at least one “unspoken.” How do you pray for an “unspoken” request? I simply ask God to be whatever or whoever that person needs Him to be; to do whatever that person needs Him to do. Every now and then, someone will reciprocate. “How can we pray for YOU?” Believe it or not, I really have to think when they ask me that. I’m a person who struggles with asking others to pray for me. I could easily ask for prayer for C or S, but for me? That’s more difficult. I’ve always felt uncomfortable asking others to pray for me. How weird is that?
As we think about prayer and the effects it has on others, let us also remember that promise in Jeremiah, as the Lord tells us, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” Let that encourage you today.
And let me know . . . what can I pray for you today?
Father, I thank You for leading me down this path of prayer. I still don’t feel worthy of appearing before You, though. There are days when I don’t think You’ll listen to me at all, but I my faith tells me I’m wrong. You will listen. Especially, I believe, when I am coming before You on behalf of others. Nevertheless, today, I will ask for You to do what Ephesians 3:16 says, for me. Father, please strengthen me with power through Your Spirit in my inner being. Strengthen me in You for the tasks ahead of me today. And heal me from my pusillanimity.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and so it shall ever be, world without end. Alleluia. Amen.
Grace and peace, friends.
Spaces of Beauty, Grace, Prayer, and Mercy 