Day 11 – Gift

 

Gift - Orphanage Sierra Leone (DS)

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;  and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5: 38-42)

We live in a culture of blame. You owe me. He forced me. They made me. When we respond like that, we are part of the old mindset. Instead we must take responsibility back. By the way we respond, let us turn a demand into a gift. When we turn everything into a gift we refuse to be a victim. We firmly, but graciously, show that we are in a relationship of equals. Such responses are costly but they make something new possible. When we make a gift of it all, a trapped world is opened to the life of God and becomes a world in which even God freely gives himself. (Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn) 

Prayer

Lord, help me to turn from defending my own honour to offering my life as a gift.

Remember today

Those who you consider a gift in life – family, friends, colleagues.

Gift from God  (JH)

Day 10 – Unexpected

Bicycles in Switzerland

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish…a man of wealth. He had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man…head and shoulders above everyone else. Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, had strayed. So Kish said to his son Saul, “…Go and look for the donkeys.” He passed through the hill country of Ephraim…the land of Shalishah… Shaalim… (and) Benjamin, but they did not find them. When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the boy who was with him, “Let us turn back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and worry about us.” (1Samuel 9: 1-5)

 

First impressions do not fix a person’s character or destiny. Rather, they highlight the aspects of a person’s personality that will need to be faced if they are to develop and mature into their full potential. With each change and challenge in life we need to revisit our default settings. Often we feel we can’t change. For Christians, the hope of change lies in the cross of Jesus. Planted in our life story, the cross cuts into those fixed cycles and makes a break in them. Trapped cycles unravel and the threads begin to open out in unexpected, exciting directions.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

Queen Mary II, Greenock (DS)

 Prayer

Lord, break into my life and give me courage to live in the adventure of all you call me to be.

 

Day 9 – Struggle

Struggle (DS)

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”  “Don’t call me Naomi” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. (Ruth 1: 19-22)

 Faith that can speak to God only in positive, upbeat or submissive terms is neither trusting nor reverent. It is just polite and compliant. Of what use is that in the face of God’s perplexing absence or apparent inaction through the bitterest struggles of life? In the Bible, the prayer of protest is a sign of trusting faith, not of its absence.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 For Reflection

Think of the struggles you or those close to you have endured these past months. Are there prayers that you have not yet found a way of expressing to God?

 Remember in your prayers

Those you know who are struggling right now, who long for company, who yearn for normality; for young people and teachers trying to cope with interruptions to their education.

 

Windsurfing in the storm (KB)

Day 8 – Dreams

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name…

For he knows how we were made;

he remembers that we are dust.

As for mortals, their days are like grass;

they flourish like a flower of the field;

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord

is from everlasting to everlasting

on those who fear him. 

(Psalm 103: 1, 14-18)

 

Dust reminds us of our origins. Dust reminds us of our mortality. Dust, throughout the ages, has symbolised penitence and sorrow for sins. We are creatures of dust yet alive in the very breath of God’s being. We are part of something much greater. An improbable story of life, wonder and mystery stirs within us. It is renewed with every breath we take. We are restless dust, dust that prays and hopes; dust with dreams of glory. And written in the dust of our nature are words of love, life and transformation. Improbably, wonderfully, we are dust with a destiny.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 

For Reflection

Find a dusty surface (not too hard if you haven’t been lockdown cleaning!) and write a prayer in the dust. If you were to return later and find God had written a reply, what might it be? (apart, maybe, from ‘it’s time you had a spring clean!”)

 

Pebble - Dreams (DM)

Remember in your prayers

Those who are facing death, who are grieving, who have lost their wonder and their way; those in care homes and hospitals whose stories are untold.

Day 7 – Identity

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. (John 1: 19-23)

 A gospel that starts with, “I am not” can easily be confused with judgemental religion. But what if this ‘not’ is actually good news? What if another story really is on offer, another way of knowing ourselves – one that is not about earning or achieving, one in which I no longer have to sustain the effort of being in the centre, because I am not? It is precisely those who are not – those outwith the social world of reputation and respectability – who witness most vividly to the gift and joy of another way of living.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 

Prayer

Lord, bless with a sense of value those in our community who feel that that they are worthless, forgotten and judged. And help me to know who I am not.

Shadows - Identity (KB)

Day 6 – Desert

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.  And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognised them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. (Mark 6: 30-33)

 A television documentary traced the journey of five people on a silent retreat. As the silence deepened, their first encounter was not with God but with themselves - and it felt like a desert. Their lives had been so busy that they could not imagine another way of living. With guidance, they learned to be with themselves at a new depth. When choosing a desert, make sure it’s deserted enough! Yes, the crowds will always arrive but they are not the problem.  We need another way of meeting them, no longer driven by urgency. It won’t always work but we can keep on trying – and so will Jesus.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 Prayer

Lord, help me to find stillness, so that in my busyness, 
I do not leave my soul behind in the wilderness.

Day 5 – Secure

Rhu & Shandon Church Tower (JN)

 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16: 2, 5-8).

 When we say “I am afraid”, what we really mean is that there is fear in us. It is not a statement about the whole of us. We must listen to our fears but not let them take over. There is a place behind our anxieties where we are not afraid. It is our truest selves, known and secure in the love of God. This is where the disciples find Jesus in those first resurrection encounters. He says “Do not be afraid.”

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

For Reflection

There has been much to fear these past months. Pray that our only fear be fear that is wise.

Remember in your prayers

Those who live in fear because of illness, war, homelessness and abandonment; those afraid of going to work because of the risk of illness.