Day 14 – Journey

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs…But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ (Luke 15: 11-15, 17-19)

Hebrew storytelling puts it main point in the middle, not the end. “Here came to himself.” This is such a revealing phrase. We speak of ‘coming to our senses’ which catches the same sense of shock of recognition. The ‘far country’ is not just a physical place for the son. He has been in exile from himself. He sees where his behaviour and choices have led him. He has blown everything. His only option is to return home. Perhaps there is something to envy in this young man’s moment of truthful awakening.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 La Gomera (DS)

Footprints in the snow (Pat)

Prayer

Lord, whatever journey I am on, bring me to myself.

Journey (DM)

Day 13 – Temptation

Coffee and cake (DM)

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptised by him…And when Jesus had been baptised, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God… (Matthew 3: 13, 16-4: 3)

Desert (EN)

Temptations follow baptism. They come to those in whom God delights and who are filled with him. The testing is a consequence of being filled with the Spirit. The challenge for us is to turn from preoccupation with our own sin and failure. Something holy and purposeful is at work in us. The wilderness is the natural habitat of the Spirit. This challenges us in the way we respond to the tests and struggles of life.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit, and lead me into the temptation of God. 

Day 12 – Broken

 

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24: 30-35)

In only one other meal in the Bible are ‘eyes opened’ – at the first meal in Scripture, in Genesis, when Adam and Eve take food they have been forbidden to touch. Their eyes are opened, but not to life or joy. Catastrophic loss follows and they are condemned to wander for ever in exile from creation and from God. Here, on the far side of death, that wandering comes to an end. Eyes are opened but this time to joyful recognition. In this meal creation is renewed and the broken story of humankind begins again.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

Prayer

Lord, make yourself known among those I pray for today, whose lives contain broken things, who feel lost and far from home.

Remember today

Those people and places which feel broken and displaced – those familiar to you and those you hear about in the news.

Broken - high altar Nikolaikirche Stralsund (KB)
(This altarpiece has a story. It was a valuable 14th century carved altar which had been stored for safety during the war when the town was bombed. Afterwards there was the Soviet occupation and huge hardship, and the cross and some of the wooden figures at the top were removed and used as toys for the children who had nothing. When the church was restored about 20 years ago they decided not to try to restore the original but keep the memory of how the altarpiece had given some happiness in a hard time. The new cross is deliberately modern.)

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.