As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts on this passage (Jenni Clarkson):

“You can’t have everything… Where would you put it?” That’s one of my favorite lines from comedian Stephen Wright.

It seems that if you were the rich man in this parable, you would simply build bigger store houses. When I was a kid, my uncle bought an extra house for his stuff. That sounds like something I made up, but my dad used to call him “the junk man.” After years of collecting things at auctions, flea markets and yard sales, the piles of things in their house were so great that you couldn’t walk through it.

So did he have a sale? Nope, he bought an extra place to keep more stuff. He talked about having a shop to sell the stuff, but I think he just liked having it too much to part with it. I think it gave him comfort to know that it was there.

Most of us live in a consumer-oriented society, but the parable makes it obvious that we didn’t invent the collector’s mentality. Too often we think that piles of things will give us peace and security. I’m afraid that’s what my uncle was doing, trying to fill a hole in his life. Perhaps the man in the parable was doing the same thing. At the end of the story, God calls the man a fool. It is foolish to think that things can fill a “God-sized” hole. He couldn’t take all his stuff with him, but he could have taken a relationship with God into eternity.

Thought for today: Where is my focus? Am I focused on my needs, or am I looking to the One who can provide for my needs?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to start, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts on this passage (Jenni Clarkson):

The book of Lamentations isn’t widely known for its encouragement. Traditionally considered to have been authored by the prophet Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the city in 587 BC, it is largely a visceral response to the Hebrews’ loss. As a student of 20th century poetry, I can say that Sylvia Plath had nothing on Jeremiah. Surely Jeremiah was intimately familiar with what we call the “dark night of the soul.” Yet, in the midst of this book of woe, comes one of the most beautifully encouraging passages I know.

A favorite old hymn called “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” echoes this passage from Lamentations. The chorus says, “Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning, new mercies I see.”

Lamentations reminds me that “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” is a song not just to sing when things are going well, but also when nothing is going well. I’ve often heard it said, “there are only two times to praise God: when you feel like it — and when you don’t!” Though I may “remember my affliction and my wandering,” and my soul may be “downcast within me,” I have hope.

As Christians, we have great reason for hope. Our hope is in the One who loves us. It is God’s love for us that sustains us, that is the very reason we are not consumed, for God’s compassions never fail.

Thought for today: Even after the worst night, dawn comes again. God’s mercies are new every morning. Call this to mind, and have hope.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to start, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Jenni Clarkson):

Well, this controversial little ditty from the apostle Paul is known in one of our SoulShift classes as the “castration passage.” In the NRSV, verse 12 very plainly states, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” It can, in fact, be a bit unsettling to be reading along in your Bible and come across that. Harsh doesn’t begin to cover it. To say that Paul was angry; well, that hardly covers it either. Then Paul has the nerve to say in verse 14, “…the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Paul, Paul, Paul, aren’t you being a little hypocritical here? Good grief, man, first you say these particular neighbors should castrate themselves, and then you say to us we should love our neighbors!

I find this to be an annoyingly difficult passage. Still, somehow I find it comforting. If the apostle Paul can go on a rant like that and still be “the apostle” Paul, then maybe there’s hope for me yet. If God can work through hot-headed Paul, surely God can also work through me.

I believe that the Scriptures are God-inspired. Still, God chose to work through human beings. I marvel at that. It amazes me how God works through faltering, stumbling, hot-headed humans to act out God’s will.

Then I turn the pages over to Philippians to read my favorite words from Paul. It makes me smile to think that the same man who wrote the “castration passage” also wrote these words, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:4-7)

Thought for the day: God can work through me, even me.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to start, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two before reading on.

My thoughts (Jenni Clarkson):

Do you recall the movie City Slickers, with the unlikely pairing of Billy Crystal and Jack Palance? Jack played the gruff old cowboy Curly. He shared the “meaning of life” with Billy Crystal’s character, and that was “just one thing.”

He held out his gloved hand with his index finger extended, “Just one thing.” “What is it?” Crystal’s character wanted to know. “That’s for you to figure out,” was the response. It’s been a long time since I saw that movie in the theatre, but it came to mind again when I read this scripture.

Martha welcomed Jesus and then was distracted by her many tasks. This summarizes Martha’s story and the story of many of us. We may have welcomed Jesus into our lives with the best of intentions, planning and meaning with all of our hearts to make time for him every day, but life happens. We have work, school, family, adorable pets that require our attention. We have floors to scrub and grass to mow. Yet the Savior waits.

I think Martha really believed she had the right idea. She wanted to serve Jesus, which certainly seems noble and honorable. Then she got rather peeved with her sister for not helping out. But Jesus said “there is need of only one thing.” Mary, it seems, had discovered the “one thing.” She “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” Sometimes I need to be reminded to do that. I may run off with many tasks, thinking that I just want to serve Jesus, when the better thing to do would be to listen to him.

Thought for the day: Think about your “one thing.” Set aside your “many tasks” for a few minutes to simply listen to Jesus.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me in this passage? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two before reading on.

My thoughts (Jenni Clarkson):

Jesus has a way of asking questions.

When he sees the man lying there on his mat, he knows intuitively that the man has been ill for 38 years. Jesus walks up to him and asks, “Do you want to be made well?” Today I can hear some of my sarcastic brothers and sisters answering with a question, “Well, what do you think, Captain Obvious?” But Jesus has a way about him, a way of asking questions that seem to have obvious answers but often have deeper meaning, going straight to the heart. Surely the man wants to be well because he’s there at the pool, waiting for the healing waters to bubble up. When the waters are stirred up, the first into the waters will be healed. The man explains he has no one to help him. (It gives a whole new meaning to “the race for the cure!”)

He has been ill a long time. Is he really ready for a change? Really wanting to turn his life upside down? Will he know what to do with his life if it’s suddenly completely different? This is a man who has, for the last 38 years, known and understood his life and his place as one of the invalids by the pool at Bethseda. Who will he be and where will he go without that as his life? But something in the way he answers Jesus says, “Yes, I’m ready.”

Jesus tells him to take up his mat and walk. When the man is questioned about carrying his mat, which is unlawful on the sabbath, he realizes that he doesn’t know who the man was who told him that. I picture him as being so excited that he doesn’t bother to take names — he just runs because he can! It’s a far cry from the man who couldn’t move fast enough to get to the healing waters.

Jesus finds him later in the temple. The significance of this should not be lost on us. The temple is a place where the man, as an invalid, and therefore by the ancient standards “unclean,” could not have gone. That’s where Jesus finds him, in the house of the Lord. This says to me that he really is ready for his new life, his new identity. He’s ready not only for physical healing but also for a fresh start with God.

Thought for the day: Maybe there’s some question Jesus is asking you, and the answer seems terribly obvious. Think about that, meditate and pray on that. Seek the deeper meaning. Are you ready for a new life?

Today, let’s join together in prayer for: the Office Ministry Team and all the members who do a myriad of tasks in the church office, and for the Team’s leader, Shane Booker.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. Use the item above as a starting point, or consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider these questions: What might God be saying to me in this passage? What jumps out at me? At the end of the reading, try to summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two before reading on.

My thoughts on this passage (Jenni Clarkson):

In this passage, David mourns his beloved Jonathan. I have never known grief like David knew. However, it is almost certain that I someday will. Death is, after all, one of our few guarantees in life.

David lamented his loss and his own barren feeling, telling the mountains, “let there be no dew or rain upon you…” Modernist poet (and gay man), WH Auden (1907-1973) expressed grief and anguish in a similar way. His poem, “Funeral Blues” begins

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

The poem is heart wrenching. (Google it, or better yet, look it up at your local library.) It is a masterful poem.

While Auden’s grief is art, David’s grief is scripture. The difference I see between the two is simple: faith. Though Auden would later have a conversion experience and join the Episcopal Church in 1940, the Funeral Blues poem is from an earlier period, first published in 1936. The last line of the poem is “For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Yet I believe that David, centuries before, knew that was not so. Remember that David is the same one who so fiercely believed in God and that God was with him that he was able to stand up to a giant. He’s is also the one who wrote, “The Lord is my Shepherd…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear not…” David knew the exquisite pain and anguish of losing the one he loved, but he also knew the love of the One who was always with him.

Thought for today: Even when you face the valley of the shadow of death, know that God is with you.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. Use the item above as a starting point, or consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.