Category: prayer

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light and darkness prayer the real self

Life with the Darkness Gone

Life: that’s what we all hunger for, wait for always,

whether we keep coming back to places like church to find it or whether we avoid places like church like the plague as the last places on earth to find it:

both delivered in part and derelict in part, immigrants and mongrels all of us.

It’s life as we’ve never really known it but only dreamed it that we wait for.

Life with each other, Life for each other.

Life with the darkness gone.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Delay”

Jesus, you said

I am the Light of the world
I am the way, the truth, and the life
I came that they might have life abundantly
My joy I give to you

May your words prevail this day
in my life
and in our world

Light shining in the darkness,
the darkness not prevailing

May it be

Grace and peace to you…

dw

Photo by dw

Categories
prayer Prayers

Undoing Evil

Dear God in heaven

In your great mercy

Turn the evil we do

Against the evil we do

So we

And our enemies

May be undone

From evil

And thereby free

To undo it.

This kind does not come out without prayer and fasting.

Jesus

Grace and peace to you…

dw

Categories
prayer the Bible

Resolved to read?

Did anyone out there make a resolution to read the Bible in 2021?

I want to share a few thoughts over the coming weeks about the Bible and the experience of reading it. Not that I’m an expert or anything: I’m not. But maybe my experience could be a help to you.

And yours to me.

So this could be kind of a discussion, if you like. What do you think?

There are two things I want to start with – to me they are really important. The first is where I’m coming from about the purpose of the Bible and of reading it; Jesus says it better than anyone:

“You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you…

Peterson, Eugene H.. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language . The Navigators. Kindle Edition. John 5:39-40

There are all kinds of reasons for reading the Bible, but for me this is the one that matters: to bring us to Jesus. That’s what I want to focus on.

The second thing I want to mention today: are you familiar with Mary Oliver’s poem Praying? (If not, you can read it here: Praying – a poem by Mary Oliver – it’s by far the most popular post on this blog.)

What does this have to do with reading the Bible? Everything. Reading the Bible is a way to pray. Come to it from where you are, with what you have and what you lack. Just be yourself. Just come.

Jesus says, “Here I am, right here. Just come on, the way you are, so we can be together.”

Grace and peace to you…

dw