Be Still
Find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted. Get comfortable. Let your body relax and your mind quiet down. Take a few deep breaths and then ask God to make his presence known to you. Be still. Take some time to sit and soak up God’s presence.
Prayer of Approach
My God, you saw me in my unformed substance and numbered my days before I had lived one of them. Be close to me now, my God, help me yield to you without restraint and to manage all the affairs of my life to the end that when I stand and give an account, I need not to be ashamed. In the name of my Lord, I pray. Amen.
Psalm 3
A psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom.
Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”
But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.
Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.
From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.
Devotional Thought
At the end of the day, review your conversation during the day, and ask yourself some pertinent questions about it.
“Did I say exactly what I meant?" "Did I seek to create any false impressions?" "Did I color my language any for effect?" "Did I make any claim for myself, my knowledge, my skill, my actions, my intentions, my attitudes, my relations which went beyond the reality?" Examine yourself as relentlessly as if it were someone else you were examining. Repent of your failure. Resolve, by the grace of Christ, not to fail in the same way tomorrow. On the morrow "set a watch at the door of your lips."
— Albert Edward Day
1 Corinthians 4:8-13
Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
Reflection
Take time to pause and reflect on your time with Jesus through the Scriptures and devotional thought. What thoughts are being drawn out of you? What emotions are being provoked? What might God be saying? Consider using a journal to write as you process, reflect, and pray.
Time for Prayer
God invites us to cast our cares on him because he cares for us. God is all-together good, already knows what we need, and is eager to give us good things. So we don’t need to pray out of anxiety or fear, but confident trust. Spend a few minutes making your requests known to God.
- For the church
- For others
- For myself
Closing Prayer
Hold before my eyes, my Lord, the diminishing number of my fleeting days, that I may receive them as precise gifts and live them in faithfulness and fidelity to you. Amen.