E&W 5-11-14

Sacred Story

Encouragements & Wisdom: May 11, 2014

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Encouragements and Wisdom: May 11, 2014 (PDF).

E & W reflections are additional helps for your Sacred Story prayer journey. Reflect on them at week’s beginning or outside of your 15-minute prayer periods.

The Affirmations

Only God’s grace and mercy can write my Sacred Story.

As we discovered in the previous Affirmation, there is a profound temptation to make ourselves god. The reason we do this is because it takes profound humility to admit we cannot save ourselves. It takes a lifetime of courage to daily face the fact that we need the Lord as Savior and Redeemer. This means that daily we must take up our cross and follow the Lord. Listen again to the words from Luke’s Gospel.

Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?” (Lk 9:23-25)

We cannot be holy apart from God. Holiness consists of daily admitting my need of a Savior and turning to the Savior of the World. In this turning to God, I admit my weakness. That weakness is the cross I must daily carry to stay in communion with Christ and his mission of reconciliation for the world. There is a freedom in this, because when I learn that I cannot save myself, that is the moment when I fully turn to the one who wants to carry me to new life. He is the Good Shepherd who seeks out what is lost and brings us home. I do not have to climb the mountain of the Lord alone. I don’t have to save myself! God, in Christ, will write my Sacred Story!

Lord Jesus Christ, you are mercy, you are the true Sacred Story of the universe. In you I place all my fears, all my sins and all my failings. I affirm that it is you who will write my personal Sacred Story. Help me turn to you daily and unburden myself from seeking my own salvation.
In all things, be for me
Creation, Presence, Memory, Mercy and Eternity.

You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.

(Psalm 23: 3-6)

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