I’ve been seeking and gathering…

Prayers, like flowers strewn among the grasses, different shapes and sizes and colors…

From the Psalms.

Today I pluck a bright one, full of joy and triumph, and share the beauty of its shape and color here.

A good prayer to start the day, with its gratitude for varied deliverances.

I make it mine, for it gives the words to voice the thanks in my heart for deliverance He, in His great love and mercy and power, granted little me.

Could it be your prayer, too? Does it speak for you?

PRAYER OF THANKS AND PRAISE

(From Psalm 30)

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… I will extol You, O LORD,

for You have lifted me up,

and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.

O LORD, You brought my soul up from the grave;

You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit…

By Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;

You hid Your face, [and] I was troubled.

I cried out to You, O LORD;

And to the LORD I made supplication:

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

To the end that [my] glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.

O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

*****

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Just one scripture, just one thought: Forever-Spring

 

The springhouse on the hill.

In all our years here, even in the worst of droughts, the spring has perpetually overflowed…

 

 

“Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water

welling up to eternal life.”

–John 4:14, NIV  

 

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Drink deeply.

Drink often.

Drink now.

 

~~~

 

 

A repost, edited and linked to

 

 

 

 

 

Writing on the Five Minute Friday prompt, PRESENT…

The present IS a present, every moment of it.

A present from, a present to…

A present from God, with all the colored wrappings of sky blue and grass green and clay brown and sand gold, of outsides and insides of thoughts and enjoyments.

And a present to pass on, to give back.

Each of my moments is just what I have to offer back to Him. When I savor with gratitude the delight of the minute and lift my heart in thanks to Him for it, I give the moment, a thank offering. When I do the smallest service with no ambition for personal greatness, I give Him a pure gift of self and humility and Romans 12:1’s best and most reasonable offering.

I think of Brother Lawrence who learned to make his life a continual offering of “doing little things for the love of God…”

I think of Mother Teresa’s saying that instead of trying to do great things for God we should do small things with great love…

That is what makes them a gift. A great gift. And that is what brings them down to the moment by moment. If I just wipe a counter, I just wipe a counter. But if I wipe it with love  for the Father, and for any who might enter the moment and see either mess and debris and disorder, or order and clean and shine, I honor the God of order and shining beauty and bless those who happen by, be they heavenly or human beings… and am much blessed in this myself.

I am learning from people like Brother Lawrence to offer each small act of service in my day, my hour, my minute, as a love gift to God, and in that I live a present, a living sacrifice…

*****

Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!

 “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us…”  –Psalm 90:14-17

[A repost prompted by a comment in the last post,

and linked to…]

 

Writing on the Five-Minute-Friday prompt for this week…

“Beautiful!”

It’s what I say so often. Sometimes aloud, often sotto voce, just to myself, to my God.

An insight from scripture washes over me.

Or I hear a familiar psalm begin, or see its words appear in a text, on a screen.

Or I catch a fleeting glimpse of God’s all-pervasive wisdom and grace in the world around me, the hidden in the visible, the blessing obscured far too often by shadows, marred by brokenness or inadequacy.

And I pray, “May the beauty of the Lord be upon me… May the beauty of the Lord be upon me…” speaking of a beauty beyond my comprehension…

Because there is a beauty that far transcends all that we deem beautiful. Beauty mere eye cannot see. Unfading, never tainted, glowing and alive for ever. That beauty—of the Lord.

And it seems to me that every beauty we can see with our eyes or hear with our ears is placed before us as a hint at the beauty so infinitely surpassing it—beauty yet invisible, inaudible, the beauty of eternity in the face of our Lord.

And what can I say in response? My meager mouth only finds fitting a breathless…  “Beautiful!”

*****

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