Pieces of the Puzzle

“And now, O sons, listen to me:

blessed are those who keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise,

and do not neglect it.

Blessed is the one who listens to me,

watching daily at my gates,

waiting beside my doors.

For whoever finds me finds life

and obtains favor from the Lord,

but he who fails to find me injures himself;

all who hate me love death.” ~Proverbs 8:32-36

“To the degree that we Christians surrender ourselves freely to the leadership of Jesus Christ through the mystical oneness we enjoy with him and in him, to that degree we can say we are Christians, living members of his body. We will know experientially that we live in his light by the gentle love we have toward each person whom we meet in each moment.

Thus we will be led from moment to moment into greater light as we see, by increased faith, hope and love, God’s loving presence in all events. Complete abandonment and childlike trust are the Holy Spirit’s gifts to those who are ready to die to their false selves and begin to live in the truth of the new creatures that they are and have always been in the eyes of the heavenly Father.” ~From In Jesus We Trust by George A. Maloney

Heavenly Father, You created me and called to my heart wooing me closer to You. Pour out Your Holy Spirit on me today so that I may be a wise steward of the gifts You have bestowed on me. Amen.

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ~John 20:21-18 (CEB)

“We move away from doubt at our own pace and with our own set of doubts and beliefs to master. While our first step is a matter of belief and ultimate trust in God, there are many other and some even more difficult steps to take in out movement from doubt to belief.

One step along this journey that causes many people to stop and struggle is the step of actually believing God loves them and that they can be lovable in God’s sight. This more than any other step along the journey makes men and women, young and old, stumble and fall from faith to doubt. Why is it so hard for us to believe that God’s love really is unconditional and that we should imitate God’s love not only for others but also for ourselves?

Perhaps we have regarded self-centered behavior too harshly. We are unwilling or unable to give ourselves the same gentle grace that God offers us and that doubt to belief and remember that God loves you, in God and in God’s creation. ~Rueben P. Job, A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God

Almighty God, send your transforming power into my life as I seek to serve you this day. Grant unto me wisdom, courage, grace, and strength to faithfully fulfill ministry to which you have called me. In the name of Christ. Amen.

Teach me your way, O Lord,

That I may walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart to revere your name.

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,

And I will glorify your name forever. ~Psalm 86:11-12 (RSV)                                                                       

“God is, above all else, a being of immense beauty. It is this beauty that continues to draw us and enfold us in eternal goodness. This mysterious Beloved is forever wooing us, longing for us to be totally immersed in love of the purest kind. As I look at my life, I count as my greatest blessing the gift of God’s own essence. Being able to know this wondrous God of beauty, being embraced and welcomed home time and again, all of this is truly powerful.

I see this immense goodness of God reflected in every variety of people and in all the facet of the universe that sing out the goodness of the Creator. Each one mirrors the essence of God’s beauty. Each one is a vessel filled with manifestations of the Creator. I know this beauty, also, within myself, in the silent encounters deep within my own being. Every once in a while, each of us senses, for a moment, this rare blessing of the touch of God. Brief as it is, it is enough to remind us that there is an underlying harmony beneath all the chaos. There is an eternal beauty giving a loving texture to all of life.” ~From The Cup of Our Life by Joyce Rupp

I thank You, Heavenly Father, for blessing me with another day. You are my greatest gift. You are my biggest treasure. You are the music my heart sings. I thank You for calling to me every morning. Amen.

The smoke of the incense offered for the prayers of the saints rose up before God from the angel’s hand. ~Rev 8:4

This is a picture of my grandmother.

I remember the first time I met her. I was about the age of my daughter in the picture. When she saw me, she wrapped her arms around me in the biggest hug. She hugged me as if I had been lost and she finally had me back in her arms.

My Grandmother was a great example of Christ’s love. Although she had 8 children of her own, she took in different nieces and nephews when times were rough during the Great Depression. Her home was ‘marked’ by hobos as a home that would kindly give you a meal if you needed it. Her home was always open to those in need. She never had much but she always was willing to share what she had.

My own life holds examples of loving kindness and acceptance that she showed me during my growing up years. As a teenager trying to understand my past, her unconditional love anchored me and her prayers sustained me. Her quiet ways showed me what it meant to live as Christ’s hands and feet in the world. Her love was God showing me who I was and to whom I belonged.

She is part of my faith story.

Today is “All Saints Day.” Saints are people who have been “set apart” for God’s holy/special purposes. On this day, as a church community, we remember all the believers in the family of God that have gone before us. Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and others that we read about in the bible as well as the many other men and women of God who were disciples of Jesus Christ down through the ages, . . . like my grandmother.

Although I sometimes still feel like that small, insecure child, the stories I read in the Bible assure me that I am part of a bigger family. The Bible is like my family album. It tells the story of great men and women of faith in the family of God. It reminds me who I am, and whose I am. As a believer in Jesus Christ, I am part of the family of God and I can claim these great stories of Abraham, Moses, Esther, Peter, James and John, all of them, as part of my faith family.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the examples You have sent us to show us Your love in the world. Help us to follow their example, and show Your love to those we meet. Amen.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. . . ~Proverb 4:23 (NIV)

“Wait a little, my soul, wait for the divine promise, and you will have more than enough of all good things in heaven. If your appetite for present things is excessive you may lose eternal and heavenly ones. Use the things of the world, but long for the things of eternity. You cannot be fully satisfied by material possessions, for you are simply not made to enjoy them. Even if you owned every good thing in the world you would not be happy and blessed, for your blessedness and joy is in God, who created all those things. Your happiness is not in what is seen and admired by others but in what the good and faithful followers of Christ seek. Your happiness is in what the spiritual and pure heart, those whose citizenship is in heaven, sometimes experience in this life, though it is meant for the next.” ~From The Imitation of Christ by Tomas a Kempis

Almighty God, in whom I find life, health, and strength, and through whose mercy I am clothed and fed, grant unto me a thankful and faithful heart. In the name and Spirit of Christ. Amen.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. ~Romans 6:12-14 (CEB)

“I know that many wiser and better Christians than I in these days do not like to mention heaven and hell even in a pulpit. I know, too, that nearly all the references to this subject in New Testament come from a single source. But then that source is our Lord himself. People will tell you it is St. Paul, but that is untrue. These overwhelming doctrines are dominical. They are not really removable from the teaching of Christ or of his Church. If we do not believe them, our presence in this church is great tomfoolery. If we do, we must sometime overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them.” ~From Fern-Seed and Elephants by C.S. Lewis

Help me this day O Lord to live as You would have me. Help me to be Your hands and feet to this hurting world. Help my focus this day be on You and not me. Amen.

We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews. ~1 Thes. 2:13-14 (CEB)

The Church is an object of faith.  In the Apostles’ Creed we pray:  “I believe in God, the Father … in Jesus Christ, his only Son – in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”  We must believe in the Church!  The Apostles’ Creed does not say that the Church is an organization that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  No, we are called to believe in the Church with the same faith we believe in God.

Often it seems harder to believe in the Church than to believe in God.  But whenever we separate our belief in God from our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers.  God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us.

O God, who through the grace of Your Holy Spirit purs the gift of love into the hearts of Your faithful people: Grant me health, both of mind and body, that I may love You with my whole strength, and with a glad heart perform those things which are pleasing to You; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen. ~adapted from The Book of Worship

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? ~Mark 8:34-37 (CEB)

“Spirituality is about seeing. It’s not about earning or achieving. It’s about relationship rather than results or requirements. Once you see, the rest follows. You don’t need to push the river, because you are in it. The life is lived within us, and we learn how to say yes to that life.” ~From Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr

Heavenly Father, help me to see with my spirit so that I may hear Your words speaking to my heart. Help me to have a full relationship with You. Help me to be Your hands and Feet in the world. Amen.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter- in- law against her mother- in- law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ~Matt 10:34-39 (CEB)

“Choosing life seems like the reasonable thing to do. If given the choice why would anyone not choose life? It seems foolish to choose anything else, to choose anything less than the best. It remains a mystery to me that we often find ourselves choosing what dimensions life and leaves us less than we were before. But we are often unaware of the consequences of our choices until later, sometimes much later.

Jesus always invites us to choose life by forsaking our way of life for his way of life. It is never and easy choice. Choosing to walk with Jesus in a culture that ridicules faithfulness and glorifies violence is to choose a way with cost attached. When you choose to walk with Jesus in a culture that rewards those who take for themselves before thinking about others, you may end up feeling someone has taken advantage of you. And yet, as the decades pass and we look back, it is clear to see that those who sought advantage by taking advantage have in reality lost life. Those who chose to walk with Jesus in the hard decisions and in the good times have discovered richness to life beyond price. At times it may seem that the cost of choosing life is too high, but when you stop and think about it, choosing life is the only reasonable choice to make.” ~Rueben P. Job, A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God

Almighty God, You have sent Jesus to show me how to live. Grant me the power of Your Holy Spirit so that I may follow him in faithfulness all the days of my live. Amen.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God. ‘Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” ~John 6:42-51 (CEB)

“If we are to experience God, we must be open to God, to the mystical, to the divine, appearing in our lives. And we must have an openness that is free of any preconditions about how that will happen. Looking for God in a godly form is the great historical mistake.” ~From In Pursuit of the Great White Rabbit by Edward Hays

Open my eyes O Lord, to see You in the world around me. Open my heart to fill Your love. Open my ears to hear Your whispers of love to my heart. Amen.