Day By Day #40

Day by Day #40

MORNING/MIDDAY PRAYER

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:13–16

            For you created my inmost being;

                  you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

            I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

                  your works are wonderful,

                  I know that full well.

            My frame was not hidden from you

                  when I was made in the secret place,

                  when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

            Your eyes saw my unformed body;

                  all the days ordained for me were written in your book

                  before one of them came to be.

Devotional

God created us in his image, knit us together in our mother’s womb with great care, and chose us for a special purpose on earth. Jesus sets us on the path to this purpose with this summary of Scripture: “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind . . . and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–40).

As you come to the end of this devotional, prayerfully consider the specific ways God is inviting you to love others well. Consider these wise words from my wife, Geri, on the importance of discerning God’s specific plans for each of us.

One way we discern our distinctive life is from the perspective of discovering our “sealed orders” from God. Sealed orders, historically, refer to specific written instructions given, for example, to the captain of a ship regarding his destination or mission. They are not to be opened until a specified time or place is reached. It is as if God has given each one of us sealed orders for our lives. . . . Author Sheila Linn simply and profoundly describes this process: “When I am in touch with the special purpose of my life in carrying out my sealed orders, I have a profound feeling of consolation or rightness and my whole body relaxes. I believe the sense of rightness expresses itself physiologically because the purpose of our life is built into the very cells of our body.”^a

These “sealed orders,” the special purpose God has for each of us, involve both paying attention to him (even through our body) and paying attention to the Holy Spirit inside us. Our love for others is rooted and grounded in God’s hospitality to us in Christ. This reality gives us the courage to take the risk in faith to show kindness to others, whether it be those routinely marginalized by society (the refugee, the poor, the disabled, the stranger) or those close to us who feel unloved, wounded, or rejected. The needs around us are enormous. But we can be thankful God is in charge of the world. We need only to discern our sealed orders.

Question to Consider

Speak to God about your willingness—or unwillingness—to follow his sealed orders, wherever they may lead you. What joys or fears are you aware of?

Prayer

Lord, I want to discover your “sealed orders” for me, the unique purpose you have for me—this day and every day. I am in your hands, Lord. I love you. Help me to trust you as I offer my life as a gift to others—today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

MIDDAY/EVENING PRAYER

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:31–32

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

Devotional

The way of the world is big and fast. King Herod erected massive buildings. Rome built a powerful empire. Athens boasted of her brilliant intellectuals. In contrast, the way of Jesus is slow and small. Just as the mustard seed begins as something small, the kingdom of God takes root in the tiny confines of the human heart but slowly grows into a tree of life—one that connects with God and others to cover the whole earth.

Jesus wants us to know that if we are to mature as Christ followers, we need to grasp this critical truth. We need to be willing and patient to let him grow us slowly.

Alan Kreider, a church historian, notes that one of the primary reasons the church grew in its first 300 years—through persecutions, oppression, and difficulties—was Christians were committed to patience and perseverance. Whether it was in their business dealings, sexual morality, valuing of women and children, care for the poor, or refusal to participate in violence, they created a comprehensive “culture of patience.” In fact, he argues, the early church fathers wrote more about the Christian virtue of patience than about evangelism. He writes:

God, in dealing with Israel across the centuries, was never in a hurry. . . . The people rejected and killed Jesus, but they did not frustrate God’s purposes. God’s mission is unhurried and unstoppable. . . . [In fact,] “patience is the very nature of God.” . . .

The fall of Adam and Eve was marked by human impatience, which was “the original sin in the eyes of the Lord.” . . .

Patience is a distinctive sign of the Christian; it enables believers to live “in the way of Christ” amid the crises of their lives.^b

People looking on from the outside were attracted to the non-anxious, unforced lifestyle of the early church. Many of us struggle with the slow, mustard-seed nature of the way Jesus works, especially as it relates to personal growth and change. But he promises that if we faithfully remain with him, we too will discover that the mustard seed of what God is doing in us will grow remarkably and powerfully. “The kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). And that transformation will include us as well—if we patiently persevere with him.

Question to Consider

In what one area of your life might God be inviting you to patiently trust him today?

Prayer

Enter, O my Light, and enlighten my darkness;

Enter, O my Life, and resurrect my deadness;

Enter, O my Physician, and heal my wounds;

Enter, O Divine Fire, and burn up the thorns of my sins;

Ignite my inward parts and my heart with the flame of Thy love;

Enter, O my King, and destroy in me the kingdom of sin;

Sit on the throne of my heart and reign in me alone,

O Thou, my King and Lord.

—Dimitri of Rostov, seventeenth-century Russian bishop

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

^a Geri Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Woman, 196.

^b Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016), 18–19, 22, 30.