Look Back

Dear God,

Remembering our past can be difficult, especially when we have memories of broken dreams, painful ordeals and unresolved conflicts. Help us to remember that in the midst of the darkness there was also the light of your grace. The moments when life seemed to offer nothing became occasions of discovering that you are everything.

When we look back today, we can see you working behind the scenes transforming our difficult moments into a means of grace. Thank God, weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning!

In Jesus Name, Amen.

Sue Burton

Going Deep

“All night all day angels watching over me my Lord!”

Hope of my present and future, I thank you for my experiences today. In the morning I praise you for new mercies and in the evening I thank you for grace. Thank you for the high positive moments and thank you for standing with me as storms cloud gathered. I can't help but thank you for your presence and care in the deepest struggles of my life.

May the experiences of today produce in me the deepening of my faith, strengthening of my love and affirmation of my Divine purpose. Thank you for every good and perfect gift and the favor you shared that was so undeserved.

In the name of Jesus, grant me perfect peace and perfect rest tonight, Amen.

VMM

Knock Knock

Eternal Spirit, come knock on the door and give us grace to open. Come to us in stimulating thoughts, clear insights, and illumined faith, in moving gratitude that makes us humble, in penitence that cleanses us, in a sense of vocation, that challenges us. Come to us in a fresh vision of Christ, his grace and mercy, his call to our consciences, and his appeal to our strength.

Let the light shine on all of us today, making plain some answers to our questions, some assurance for our doubts, some strength for our weakness, some vision for our duty, and may we be the more valiant and triumphant spirits because we have worshipped, in the Spirit of Christ, Amen.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

We're On Our Way

Prepare us Lord to begin a new year. Lead us to do those things that help our hearts and minds to be receptive to a fresh start.

Today:

We will begin by discarding thoughts, attitudes, and habits that are not compatible with an abundant, beautiful and excellent life.

We turn away from negative people, places and things and turn towards that which is positive and uplifting.

We let go of whatever caused past discouragement, disappointment, or disagreement.

We reach for those things that encourage, support and nourish my body, mind and spirit.

We stand boldly on your Word that tells us you shall do a new things, bring water to parched places and cause the wilderness to bloom.

We are open and receptive to new ideas, activities and relationships. We are on our way to a new year!

In Jesus name, I pray, Amen

VMM

Take The Journey

In times of instant travel, the notion of “a journey” may lose its symbolic significance. Yet each of us knows that whenever we have an experience; times of transition in our lives, whether they be individual transitions or transitions in our families or communities, no instant arrival at a new way of looking, knowing, valuing, or believing is possible. Internal and external conflicts signal that the old ways of understanding and making sense of our lives no longer hold us together. We have indeed set out, but we have yet to arrive at the place of our destiny.

T.S. Eliot writes, “Emptied, the Magi come to the place where the star reappears brighter than before. Not a moment too soon, the Magi entered into the stable and “they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage.” (Matt. 2:11) The desert or (wilderness) journey prepared them for this moment of seeing, of encountering the Holy Mystery of God in the very midst of human experience. Indeed, the Magi could not grasp themselves to be grasped by the Holy Mystery revealed in this moment. Nevertheless, they worshiped the one they had been led to find and they found joy.

In this season, let not the fear of the disruption of our normal lives cause us to miss an opportunity to gain a deeper connection with our greater self and find the joy that rest in us when we follow the our star. Fear attempts to distract us and hinder us from arriving at the place where the star will lead us. Remember, at the end of that journey lies our destiny and no matter how dark the journey, when we arrive, we will be illuminated.

Rev. Nigel Felder, Louisville, Kentucky

O Lord, help us not to be too lazy to take the journey to participate in kingdom events. Prepare us to bring the necessary gifts to honor you and demonstrate our love. In Jesus name, Amen.

Silent Holy Nights

Nights are rarely silent and holy in too many places in the world.

Let us pray:

Lord, help us to carry a little bit of silence within us as we meet the busy rush of crowded streets, malls and agendas, tinkling brass and sounding cymbals. Help us to enter into the chaos with your silence to encourage others to be still and know that you are God. Help us to be holy because you are holy in thought, word, and deed. Help us to have extra calm so that wars and worries won’t capture us today.

And when the night comes, may we sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace. Amen.

VMM

Know, Love and Praise

Grant to me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know, to love what I ought to love, to praise what delights thee most, to value what is precious in thy sight, to hate what is offensive to Thee. Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes, nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men; but to discern with true judgment between things visible and spiritual, and above all things to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.

Prayer of Thomas a Kempis