Day 16

Today's Scripture is suitable to use with Lectio Divina

Stilling: Come into the presence of God and still yourself and dedicate this time to God.

Grace: In this time of anxiety, to see your life more as God sees it. To see with God your deeper self, the person behind all the activity, a person made in God’s image.

Prayer Suggestion: Come into God's presence and take whatever bothers you about God or God's ways, life, yourself, etc ... and bring it to the Shepherd who is concerned for you ... ask God to show you all sides of it ... and then just let things come to you in prayer .... Block out nothing.

Let your thoughts flow on their own .... put your feelings into the hands of God and then, with your imagination and memory just let things happen ... Let God do the work

Isaiah 55:8-13 HCSB

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

“For as heaven is higher than earth,

so My ways are higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts.

For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return there without saturating the earth and making it germinate and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat,

so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty,

but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.”

You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn-bush, a cypress will come up, and instead of the brier, a myrtle will come up; it will make a name for Yahweh as an everlasting sign that will not be destroyed.

Conversation: Follow the Scripture with a conversation with God who loves you and has journeyed with you through each living moment up till the present time and wants the best for you.

Final Prayer: As usual end your prayer with your favourite formal prayer, such as the 'Our Father' - The Lord's Prayer.

So Hungry

We are so hungry!

There is such a deep unmet longing in us

that we are driven to erratic and anxious enrollments

in seminars, retreats, and workshops on myriad themes of spirituality,

healing, wholeness, and even miracle making!

Millions of us are searching for a spiritual jump-start

or an instant divine fix.

The journey begins in spiritual infancy

and unfolds and grows through our everyday life experiences.

It is all right to be hungry.

It is all right to want more.

But it is God who feeds the waiting heart.

We must be empty vessels,

not afraid of that very emptiness.

We must wait -

ever gentle with ourselves -

until God scoops us up, and comforts us.

Edwina Gateley

Other Poems by Edwina Gateley on Amazon.co.uk

Return to Pentecost Retreat main page.