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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 January 4, 2004
The New Year is traditionally a time to take stock. So is a birthday. Thus, for most of my years, the first week in January (which, in my case, includes my birthday), is a time to reassess my life, and resolve to make changes. For many years, my personal discipline resolutions fell into the "more" or "less" categories. More.exercise, study, reading, prayer, praise, and decluttering. Less consuming, collecting, complaining, spending, and cluttering. Broader-scoped resolutions included finding better ways to reach out and accommodate the needs of others and the needs of our planet. Throughout the year, I worked in earnest to fulfill expectations based on these pledges made to myself. No doubt, some growth of character and person resulted from my intentionality. And I pray, some good accrued to others along the way. But, when I inevitably fell short, I questioned my ability to self regulate, and at times even my worth as Godıs child. Mercifully, over the years, my focus has shifted from needing to "get it right" for God, to allowing God to get me right for Him. My attention is focused more on what God wants me to become rather than what will become of me. When our granddaughters, Anna and Katherine, want our undivided attention, they go to great lengths to get it. When all else fails, they take our faces in their little hands and turn our eyes to face them. In a similar way, God beckons us to engage Him. When we drift away or turn our attention too long to things not of His Kingdom, He uses life events or other humans to direct our gaze back to Him. Like our granddaughters, who don't care that we are flawed or frazzled when they solicit our attention, God wants us to come to Him, just as we are, to seek His face, to discover His will for our lives....and all the details will follow. All else will be added in the measure needed to accomplish the goals set by God for His purposes. No stress, no strain! Just trust! I can rest in the knowledge that He has a plan for me that includes peace and not evil. He says he will give me a future and a hope. Thatıs good enough for me this year! My favorite verse of "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" is my New Year's Prayer... in place of any resolutions for 2004:
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Devotion for the week of January 11, 2004 "...you are precious in my sight, "The Talkative Lover" by Anthony deMillo At that time and place the lover finally found himself seated beside his beloved. He then reached in his pocket and pulled out a sheaf of love letters that he had written to her over the past months. They were passionate letters, expressing the pain he felt and his burning desire to experience the delights of love and union. He began to read them to his beloved. The hours passed by but still he read on and on. Finally, the woman said, "What kind of a fool are you? These letters are all about me and your longing for me. Well, here I am sitting with you at last and you are lost in your letters." "Here I am with you," says God, "and you keep reflecting about me in your head, talking about me with your tongue, and searching for me in your books. When will you hush up and see?"
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Devotion for the week of January 18, 2004
This is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The worldwide observance, which begins Sunday, January 18, and ends Sunday, January 25, invites us to pray for unity, asking that God's people may be one, as the Father and the Son are one. For at least two reasons, let us pray for the oneness of the Church. First, let us ask that we may be one, because division in the Christian family is a scandal. Robert McAfee Brown notes that Christians often sing:
He suggests that a more honest version would go:
Indeed, one of the skeletons in the Christian closet is division. That this shameful, divided character of the Church may be overcome, ask the Lord for unity. A second reason to ask for Christian unity is this: Our Lord prayed for the oneness of his followers. "Holy Father," he said, "protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one." Remembering our Lord's prayer for the oneness of all Christians everywhere, let us align ourselves with his will and ask that it be done. Among other things, the credibility of our witness and service depends upon unity. We sing: We all are one in mission; For the sake of the effectiveness of our mutual mission, ask God to show us how to walk hand-in-hand and to work side-by-side. For, when the unity for which Jesus prayed becomes a reality among us, our common mission will be strengthened.
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Devotion for the week of January 26, 2004
How many times have we prayed most fervently for something? A promotion at work, a passing grade in school, for winning touchdown by our favorite team, for respite from the stresses of the day, for love to be returned, for anything dear to our hearts? We may not have been answered in the way we expected or not at all. Does that mean that prayers are meaningless and useless? Not at all. Our prayers, which we hold close to ourselves, are wafted to the ears of God. God deals with them, as He deems fit and necessary. In this scripture lesson, Hannah prayed with all her heart and soul for relief from her childless state. She felt useless as a woman because she could not have children to bless her marriage and her home. Her status among the other women of the tribe was despised and ridiculed. She was saddened for her husband. In pain and shame she turned to the only possible source of help known to her, God. How does the story end for Hannah? Look in 1 Samuel 1:19-20 and see how God dealt with her prayers and what the effects on history were.
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