For all of today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
The good life
Friday, December 9, 2016
Second Week of Advent
Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is she who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. She is like a tree planted near running water that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade. What she does, prospers.
There is so much to do. Even without deadlines, obligations or appointments I am swallowed up by my own desires, my own wide eyes looking in one direction and then another. I am overtaken – to put it bluntly – by my own anxiety. What am I doing to make my life worthwhile?
So … being fades away. Thank you, Lord, for the dawn of day and the moments before sleep, because those are the times I am learning to be still, to be still and know, to be still and know that you are God.
In the morning I sit on the edge of my bed and do … nothing. Just sit there and breathe a few times. You could say I am meditating on the law of the Lord. Kind of.
At the close of the day I think a little and thank God for the day. What was I grateful for? What was I not grateful for? A simple “Examen” of whatever comes to mind about my life today, and suddenly I am asleep.
These are moments beside the running water. Without them I’m afraid all my leaves are brown, and the skies are gray. Woolgathering would turn me over in my already-and-not-yet grave. And then turn me over again. I would wander aimlessly into the storm, not even noticing the lightning.
Most of us run the risk this month of losing track of our “being” time. Don’t do it. There are many important things for me to do in the next few weeks. None of them are more important than paying attention to Jesus-in-my-mind, Jesus-in-my-soul. Walking with him beside the quiet waters.
On my deathbed, Lord, what will I say? That I’m glad for the moments of quiet with you and that I’d wish there’d been more? Of course that’s what I’ll say. What I won’t say is that I wish I had spent even more of my life frantically chasing my tail. Please straighten me out, Lord, and set my eyes on straight, and let me see what YOU have for me to see.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2016/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1526
