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"Running in Faith" is an electronic devotional guide written by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church. Each week, writers use their personal interpretation of scripture to write an inspirational message they hope will help readers take their Sunday faith into weekday lives. Your comments are appreciated and, when related to a particular devotion, passed to the writer. We hope you will share these devotions with friends and coworkers. We are always happy to add new names to our e-mail list. Please contact us if you wish your name to be added. |
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Devotion for the week of May 6, 2002
Not long ago, I was asked how I came to my spiritual awakening and center to my life. At first, I was startled by the question because I did not how to answer it. I have taken some time to consider it carefully and I still don't have a sense of exactly when my faith became important in my life. All I know is that it is there. I have had a very broad set of religious and cultural exposures. In addition, I was raised in two different cultures and languages simultaneously -- European Russian and American. All of these experiences molded my faith. I have always been a person that kept a great deal to myself and held tightly within me. I had learned to internalize things that impressed and stressed me. I took inside of me all of many the diverse religious, cultural and other experiences I had directly through observation and indirectly through study or readings. I realize now that I was able to integrate all of these experiences into my being and had developed a strong personal faith that supported and stabilized me as I went through dramatic powerful crises in my life. I still do not know when it came about. I am not concerned with when or how, I just know that it is there and that it sustains me and I am grateful. All of this resonated strongly in me the first time I read the Scripture lesson in Matthew 6 about praying quietly in the privacy of my home, my head or my heart. It had come about that I no longer wondered because I knew. I no longer had to question my faith because it is always there inside me. I have survived crises and enjoyed happy times because I had been given strength and peace through my faith. I marvel at each new realization of where I am and who I am and who everyone else is with whom I come in contact. I greatly treasure the Quaker principle that each of us has that bright spark of the divine within us that shines forth on everyone I meet and theirs illuminates me. And, I am mindful of the responsibility each of us has to "mind the light".
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Devotion for the week of May 13, 2002
Survival - it's the first law that many people live by today, Christians as well as non-Christians. How can we survive in a world which seems so anti-Christian? John gives us an answer in today's verse. We must live in this world, but we need to live as God's chosen people. It's so easy to be captured by the lure of the world around us with the glitter of moving up the ladder materially and socially. Sometimes it's difficult to be different from others in the business world or even at church. How can we tell if we are in love with the world? Sometimes we choose to do what feels good rather than what is best for us. Sometimes we try to fill up our emptiness with things, people, and activities that only God can fill. Sometimes pride permeates our life, usually characterized by defensiveness, excessive competitiveness, and the need to draw attention to ourselves. Often pride creeps into our relationships with others and the relationships reflects the standards of the world rather than God's pattern. When we don't love the world we acknowledge that all we are and have is a result of God's blessings, and it has been entrusted to us to be used for God's glory.
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Devotion for the week of May 20, 2002
This week the Vice President of my company addressed his group of employees and stated that we should respect each others culture and religious beliefs, and that stereotyping individuals will not be tolerated. In my business career, I never thought issues like these would have to be enforced or even suggested. In fact, the group of people who are affected by prejudices are usually overlooked in everyday scenarios by our government officials and businesses. However, God pours out his Spirit to all flesh not a select group of people. It is when a person recognizes God's action in their life that one can share their faith with others. We all have different beliefs but there is only one faith in our Lord Jesus Christ! I have been fortunate to share my faith with my manager, who is a Muslim and he has shared his beliefs with me. One afternoon he wanted to speak to me about my sermon on "Transfiguration." After an hour and a half I found out why he gave up the Christian faith to become a Muslim. He also said to me that I needed to complete my sermon. I smiled and said this sermon is a living document and it will never be complete. For both of us, we have our differences but we both believe in God and are filled with His Spirit. God does not stereotype his believers but fills them with His Spirit. As our comfirmands make their commitment to Christ, we also affirm our faith through baptism. Become aware of God's action in your life and share with others your faith; not only your belief. It is a probability that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" but the Christian who spreads the good news will make it a possibility through the Holy Spirit.
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Devotion for the week of May 27, 2002 "Hear my prayer, O God; I dislike asking for things, bothering people with my requests. It makes me uncomfortable. And it makes it hard to pray. I don't like to pray for myself -- I come away feeling selfish and self-centered. And yet I do pray for myself. Constantly. It bothers me, this hypocrisy. I sat down the other day to list the occasions, which I remember praying most fervently. Every single prayer turned out to be a prayer for myself. I've prayed for sleep, for courage, for health, for ... well, for me. And it all made me rather ashamed. Then it occurred to me that a good half of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer for the self. This prayer -- so often held up as an example of selflessness -- asks for things: give us our daily bread, forgive our debts, forgive our debtors, free us from temptation and evil. I began wondering about the possibility of praying altruistically for one's self. How have others prayed for themselves? And did they succeed in praying selflessly? As a librarian, I spent most of my career days looking for things. So I went looking for prayers in the classical literature, and I leave you to judge whether these 2 examples do, indeed exhibit altruism. General Lord Astley: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me." A fisherman's prayer from the Breton coast: "Dear God, be good to me: the sea is so wide and my boat is so small."
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| Year 2002 Index | |
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