Thursday, September 14, 2006

Path

God, We walk an efficient pathway. We get a lot done. Each day we rise and go forth into this world intending to accomplish, get things done, build, and grow. We want to serve you and make things happen for the sake of the kingdom. It’s just not working real well, and we know it in our hearts. Yet, we don’t seek a different way. We think more of what isn’t working will grant us what we are missing. What we often lack is the knowledge of your love and sharing that with each other. This is our purpose, and we want to go that way. Yet, we pass by that path for the one named "This way - What We Get Done." Really, this path hinders your simple plan of us finding our beloved status in you.

In our bid to be the finest, we may lose sight of poverty and brokenness within us. So, we lose sight of you because it is there that you meet us.

In our hunger to express our gifts using them to the fullest, we may miss the experience your simple and without-fanfare gift of grace.

In our efforts to give you glory, we may lose sight of the glory, blessedness, and wonder you bestow on us.

Through our sacrifices to love and serve, we sometimes abandon the intimate knowledge of sacrificial love for us.

So much of what we do has created a frantic search for something we can only know through abandonment. When we abandon the forms and formulas, we find you. When we abandon the big deals and supercharged events, we find you. When we abandon this unending search for an imaginary something, we find you. When we abandon our way, we find you.

You are always the alternate path to every other around us.

You are found in the quiet and in silence, not always in the stimulating. You are found when we take time to reflect allowing you to stir our souls, less so in busyness. You are found when we set aside achievement disregarding a prize or win. Teach us to set it all aside, to place you in our sights and not the things we perceive to be of you. Teach us love letting go of efficiency. Teach us rest saying goodbye to reward and fulfillment.

May we go the path of you, not the tangled messy trail we forge for ourselves. That trail is busy. It’s full. It’s filled with stress and frustration. It’s a trail that feels like we are getting somewhere, a place of importance. Yet, it only leads to more of the same and less of you.

You are the path, you alone.



Psalm 23


God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from.

True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty chase afer me every day of my life. I'm back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Psalm 19

The revelation of God is whole
and pulls our lives together.

The signposts of God are clear
and point out the right road.

The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy.

The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes.

Psalm 19, The Message

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Psalm 8















God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?

Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming
whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.


The Message

Psalm 1
















How well God must like you - you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart Mouth College.

Instead you thrill on God's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night. You're a tree planted in Eden, bearning fresh fruit every month. Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

Psalm 1.1-5 The Message


Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Prayer - God's Children

God,

We are all your children.

As parent, you love us not by our choice. We didn’t go looking for you, making things happen to have a relationship with you. You did it through Jesus. We were, each of us, orphans looking after our own needs, wandering around, hungry, and displaced. We weren’t well kept, maybe a little dishevelled with mud on our face. You found us, took us into your home and made us your dearly beloved ones. In fact, you made your home within us. You created a safe place and shelter in our hearts, a place of freedom from those who wish to rob our souls, take advantage or harm us.

This orphanage of our hearts is not like the ones you hear about or see in old movies. In the home of our hearts where you dwell, you love us not based on our behaviours. You don’t cast us away, send us out into the cold dark night when we fail, mess up, don’t get things right. You maintain constant contact with us. You want us to turn and learn better ways, but you do so with your loving arms always around us. Though we may kick and scream at you, demand what we want, you hold on tight not loving us any less. At those moments you don’t feel embarrassed, hoping no one is looking and saying, “Is that really your child?” You still see us as your dearly beloved, beautiful creations.

You love us not based on our looks or abilities. In a world that judges based on how good we are at something or what we achieve, you love us apart from all that. We sometimes get down on ourselves because we don’t measure up, have it all together. You don’t go the pathway of shame. In fact, you route for the underdog, the one who trips and falls down, lacks coordination.

You love us when we are not well. When our noses run, we drool, or are dirty.

You show no favouritism to your children, preferring one to another.

You love us when we don’t understand, fail to grasp, lack the insight to know which we to go.

We squabble, showing rivalry at times. Yet, you don’t stay at the office avoiding our mess. You continue with us that we may be gathered together in harmony and love. You don’t send one of us off to a distant relative in hopes of some greater peace in the family. You maintain your loving ever-present contact with each of us.

You are particularly close to us when we fall down and are hurt, or when we are wounded by others.

The greatest gift to us has been, is and will be your search for us. Like an adoptive child, you came for us. While we were powerless, you arrived on the scene. We didn’t make things happen with you, but you made things happen with us, loving us the moment you saw us. This type of love will continue.

You are El Shaddai, the God who draws near, the God of the breast.

You are a Father with space, time, and energy for each of us, a life of constant one-on-one outings with you.

You are the One who shelters us in the shadows of your wings.

You gather us as a mother hen gathers her chicks.