Devotion

This week I am spending a couple days in Vermont in conversation around a new book out by Martha Reese Grace. The book is called “Unbinding the Gospel”. It is one of the best books I have found on forming, exploring, sharing and helping others with our faith in Jesus Christ. Here is an excerpt from the end of a chapter entitled Real Life (page 68). It is the closing exercise for the section. It’s good for reflection. ~ Rev. Don

“Will you try something new in your spiritual life this week for your “homework”? Let’s try to scramble your patterns! Change something in your way of interacting with God. Do you talk to God a lot” Try sitting for ten minutes a day, thinking of Christ and listening.

Do you spend you prayer time mainly praying for others? Try something different. Sit quietly and ask the Spirit to show you anything you’re using to block God in your life, or an old hurt buried in you that God could heal. Do you journal? If not, try it.

You could pray the Jesus prayer. This is an Eastern Orthodox prayer that is repeated over and over to still our spirits and to open our souls to Christ. Get a bead necklace, a set of Eastern Orthodox prayer beads, a rosary, a string of pearls, or a string of Mardi Gras beads! Sit quietly, holding the beads. Hold one bead and say the Jesus Prayer once, breathing slowly in and out as you think the words, “Lord Jesus Chris, have mercy on me.” [Or “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner”]. Move to the next bead and think the prayer again, slowly, I time with your breathing. Pray the prayer with your beads for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes each day for a week.

Have you been reading one Bible translation for the last 30 years? Change it. Get a copy of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message. Better yet, get a recorded version and listen in the car or while you do the dishes. If you listen to Christian rock on the radio, get a CD of African-American spirituals. The point is, ask God to scramble your circuitry and show you something new.

At the end of the week, discuss (or write) what God has shown you.”