Wednesday Devotion

Words for reflection on the day ahead or the day past.

Centering . . .

GOOD

If creation is
good, does that mean it couldn’t
be better, or best?

Maybe God gave us
a start, trusting us to keep
a good thing going.

Sometimes good is hard
to find: even a brief glimpse
seems an illusion.

God, give me the faith
to trust in your goodness, and
the strength to share it.
Good, Lent Haiku by Mike Cross, a member at Bethany Christian Church in Tulsa

Ponder . . .

Pitchers and Hitters

Hitters don’t have much of an agenda other than, ‘swing at the good balls.’ No one blames the hitters when the pitcher has a hot hand and throws a no hitter.

Pitchers, on the other hand, decide what’s going to happen next. Pitchers get to set the pace, outline the strategy, initiate instead of react.

When your job is in reaction mode, you’re allowing the outside world to decide what happens next. You are freed from the hard work of setting an agenda, but in exchange, you dance when the market says dance. “I did the best I could with what was thrown at me. . .”

Finding the guts to move up the ladder is hard. When you decide to set the agenda and when you take control over your time and your effort, the responsibility for what happens next belongs to you.
Seth Godin, Pitchers and Hitters, February 20, 2015

Remember . . .

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

We groan for our colleagues,

for the powerful and powerless;

for children growing up only knowing war.

We groan for ourselves.

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

We trust that you hear, O Lord; we trust you see and deliver us from evil done and evil undone.

The Lord does not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
the Lord did not hide from me, from us, but hears the cries.

Listen and do not hide from:

complacent congregations,

confused and committed clergy,

doctors and nurses,

the prayers of the people.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek shall praise the Lord.
May our hearts live forever!

Listen and do not hide from those that seek;

from those that serve neighbor as if meeting the Lord;

from those whose lives are yeast and mustard seeds.

Posterity will serve the Lord; future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
Adaptation of Psalm 22 by Michael Davison