Day By Day #27

Day by Day #27

MORNING/MIDDAY OFFICE

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: John 3:25–29a

An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom.”

Devotional

John the Baptist exhibited great courage and integrity in embracing his God-given purpose despite the pressure all around him. He was clear that “a person can receive only what is given them from heaven” (John 3:27). God invites us to live with a similar integrity, even when we pay a price for doing so. Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks offers a stunning example of this.

Rosa Parks was an African-American woman living in the segregated South in the 1950s. She was tired of pretending everything was fine when it was not. Author Parker Palmer describes what became a history-changing moment—both for her and the Civil Rights movement:

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks did something she was not supposed to do: she sat down at the front of a bus in one of the seats reserved for whites—a dangerous, daring, and provocative act in a racist society. . . .

[When] asked, “Why did you sit down at the front of the bus that day?” Rosa Parks did not say that she sat down to launch a movement. . . . She said, “I sat down because I was tired.” But she did not mean that her feet were tired. She meant that her soul was tired, her heart was tired, her whole being was tired of playing by racist rules, of denying her soul’s claim to selfhood.^a

Rosa Parks made a decision that day to no longer live divided. She would no longer submit on the outside to laws and to a culture that contradicted the truth of her integrity on the inside.

God invites us to live divided no more as well. When we do, we—and ultimately everyone around us—experience a newfound freedom.^b

Question to Consider

Here are some signs that we are living a divided life, a life without integrity:

        •     We care too much what others think.

        •     We spin the truth, exaggerate, or lie to make ourselves look better.

        •     We blame others rather than take responsibility for our words and actions.

        •     We avoid confrontation.

        •     We say yes when we prefer to say no.

Which of these characteristics, if any, might be true of you? What makes it difficult for you to live with integrity in this area of life?

Prayer

Father, I want to live out of my true self, to live undivided. I ask that you fill me with the same supernatural power that raised Jesus from the dead so that I can make even a small “Rosa Parks” decision today—a decision to not pretend everything is fine when it is not. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

MIDDAY/EVENING OFFICE

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Exodus 3:1–5

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Devotional

At the age of eighty, Moses heard God’s voice in a very unlikely place, and it changed his destiny. One minute he was an obscure desert shepherd. The next moment, God invited him to overcome enormous obstacles (everything from his past failures to the all-powerful Pharaoh) in order to set the Israelites free from 400 years of slavery.

God’s voice often comes to us in similar ways. In unlikely events and circumstances, he calls us to listen to him, allowing him to interrupt our lives, and lead us to new places. It was an uncomfortable experience for Moses, and it is no less uncomfortable for us. That’s almost always what it feels like when we take a risk to follow God into the unknown. It’s an experience not all that different from the one faced by test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first human being to break the sound barrier.

The year was 1947, and nobody had ever surpassed the speed of sound—760 mph at sea level—due to a widely held belief in the existence of a “sound barrier,” an invisible wall of air that would smash an airplane that tried to pierce it.

When Chuck Yeager was invited to be the test pilot, his boss informed him, “Nobody knows for sure what happens until somebody gets there. Chuck, you’ll be flying into the unknown.”^c Neither the Air Force nor the colonel could guarantee the outcome. Nobody had been there before.

After nine attempts, on October 14, 1947, Yeager finally broke the sound barrier. He wrote later about the experience, “I was thunderstruck. After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway. . . . After all the anticipation it was really a let down. The ‘unknown’ was a poke through Jell-O.”^d

You may be wondering what will happen if you take seriously God’s purpose for you and allow him to lead you to new places. Yes, your life, like Yeager’s airplane, will shake in the process of you maturing into the person God intends. But if you move forward, you will find that God is with you and behind you. And the terrifying unknown ahead may well turn out to be no more frightening than “a poke through Jell-O.”

Question to Consider

How has God been seeking to get your attention lately? What is your “burning bush” equivalent—that issue that is burning but won’t die?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, set me free to be the person you have created me to be, and to do what you have called me to do. Like Moses, I ask you to help me to leave behind the negative experiences and failures of the past so that I can follow you into the future you have for me. Help me discern your hand at work in and through every circumstance and season of my life. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

^a Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2000), 32–33.

^b For additional material on this theme, see ch. 8, “Quit Living Someone Else’s Life,” in Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Woman, 210.

^c Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos, Yeager: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books, 1985), 154.

^d Yeager: An Autobiography, 165.