Devotion
Words for reflection on the day ahead or the day past.
Centering . . .
Whatever your task, do it wholeheartedly, as to God:
in teaching, give all you have;
in speaking, stir to the depths;
in giving, share liberally;
in helping, do so cheerfully.
Contribute to the needs of God’s people,
and practice hospitality.
[based on Colossians 3:23, Romans 12:7-10, 13. Chalice Worship, Cartwright and Harrison, Chalice Press, 1997, p. 390.]
Ponder . . .
Enthusiasm and contempt are both self-fulfilling
Someone who shows up with enthusiasm made a decision before she even encountered what was going on.
The same thing is true for the guy who scowls with contempt before the customer opens his mouth.
It’s a choice.
This choice is contagious.
This choice changes what will happen next.
This choice is at the heart of what it takes to be successful at making change or performing a service.
More than you imagine, we get what we expect.
[Seth Godin, April 9, 2015]
Remember . . .
We all walk a road. Sometimes alone by choice. Sometimes together by necessity.
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road,
while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
Remember a time when someone opened the scripture for you.
Remember a time when you opened the scripture for another?
What is similar about both those memories?
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem;
and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.
They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”
Remember a time when you saw or experienced the risen Lord.
What did you do next?
Then they told what had happened on the road,
and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Remember the first time you were at a table.
How is the good news of God known to you when you share bread with others?
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, 1920