March 2010 DEVOTIONALS Main Devotional Page March 1 Rocky soil: When Life gets in the way Read Exodus 20:1-21 You have just read the original Top Ten list. It was the Ten Commandments. And it starts with “there is no other god.” Our Lenten journey focuses on prayer. And we are using the Parable of the Farmer from Mark chapter 4 as a guide for our focus on prayer. This Parable reveals four soil types that exist in our hearts: hard, rocky, thorny, and good soil. This week we are looking at the Rocky soil in our hearts. Rocky soil is the kind of soil that takes us away from the first commandment. But what is interesting about Rocky soil is it begins with an experience of faith. Jesus said of the rocky soil, the seed is able to grow quickly, but because the rocky soil is shallow, the plant does not get good roots and quickly withers and produces no fruit. So part of having rocky soil means we believe, but the Rocks get in our way of committing fully to this truth that “there is no other god.” When we identify the rocks in our soil (heart) we have two options. We can try to move those rocks on our own, or we can ask for God’s help. Certainly, there are small pebbles in our soil that are small enough for us to move, they are just annoying. And if you have ever tried to get rid of pebbles from your own garden you know what a long and painstaking process it can be. But when it comes to large rocks in our garden, this is when we need help. During this week, you will be invited to open your heart to God in prayer, to ask God to be the gardener of your heart who removes the rocks from your life, so you can focus on the truth “there is no other god.” Person of interest: George Herbert, hymn writer, died 1633 <back to top> March 2 Read Luke 18:18-29 Part of identifying our rocks is knowing what kind of rocks we face as humans. And today’s text from Luke’s Gospel hits us right in the wallet. Yes, one of the biggest rocks we deal with is the rock of wealth. Now first, let me put out a disclaimer. This text does not mean God is against personal wealth. Certainly, God is not against personal wealth. One of the main goals of life is financial security. It is an important goal to have. The rock of wealth is when wealth prevents us from having “no other god”. Wealth has the potential of becoming a new “god” for us. This happens when we strive for more and more and more and more and more and . . . This happens when we become slaves to our financial security. This happens when we forget to let God help us arrange our financial priorities. How do we share with the poor? How are we feeding the hungry? How are we clothing the naked? We are naturally concerned about our financial security. We want to be able to provide for our family the basics of life – food, shelther, and clothing. We even want to pursue our hobbies, and personal interests. In all that, God says – be blessed. But do not let the pursuit of financial wealth become a rock that leaves God out of the picture. When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” God is providing that daily bread through our financial security. It is all gift from God. Take a moment today, and ask God to be the gardener of your life. Ask God to help you develop a holy confidence in your financial security, and ask God to help move the financial rocks in your life out of the way so you are able to focus on God’s will for you and for your finances. Persons of Interest: John Wesley, died 1791; Charles Wesley, died 1788; renewers of the chruch <back to top> March 3 Read Luke 18:9-14 One rock that is inescapable for everyone is the rock of self. If there is something that is going to always get in the way of letting God be God it is our desire to let the self be god instead of God being God. In the lesson from Luke’s Gospel, the first person praying stood before God and rattled off his credentials. It was everything he had accomplished. He was basically praying – see why I don’t need you! And the other person praying humbling stood before God and asked for God to be God. When we forget who is really God, we find ourselves trying to take care of everything on our own. We find our own pride getting in the way of letting others help. We stand before God like the first person praying in this story – and telling God our credentials. We don’t need you God. Yet, we do need God to be God. We do need to let God pick up these rocks and move them. As we pray in the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done” – we are inviting God’s kingdom to come to us, and God’s will to happen in our life. We cannot let God’s kingdom come or God’s will to be done, if we are not letting God be God. Our prayer life is an opportunity to always check in with God – to say to God – you are God, not me! As we pray, God will be moving those rocks around. God is able to pick out all the pebbles that are too annoying for us to pick up. God is able to move the big rocks that require heavy machinery. Take a moment today to pray: God, thank you for being the gardener of my life. Move the big rocks in my life, especially the rock of my own ego, out of the way. Let my soil be good soil, deep soil, where my faith can truly take root and grow in your ways. Amen<back to top> March 4 Read Matthew 16:21-28 The Rock of Human Perspective is a tricky rock. How else are we supposed to look at things? Peter heard Jesus talk about dying and that was what it meant for him to be Messiah. From Peter’s human point of view, dying was an end. Everyone who had come before Jesus who had claimed to be a messiah had their movement end when they died. Now Jesus says dying will be the beginning? Not an ending? In the words of the most famous Vulcan (very logical people from the Star Trek series) “That’s Illogical!” When we look at things from a human perspective, we can easily lose sight of God’s values and God’s ways. From a human perspective, it looks like might makes right. From a human perspective it looks like the one with the most toys wins. From a human perspective power and authority are earned through hard work. Yet this is not at all how God works in the world. Peter showed us that we do not always understand how God is working in the world, because we are simply looking at things from a human point of view. As we pray, God moves those rocks around and puts them into the proper perspective. From God’s perspective, in our weakness God is most active. From God’s perspective, the poor inherit the earth. From God’s perspective, death on the cross was the crowning achievement of Jesus, the King. We may not understand it all at first. But take a moment today to ask God in prayer to show you his perspective. Ask God to open your heart to God’s Will and his Kingdom as it comes to you. As you pray, ask God to help you sort through the rocks in your heart’s garden so God can help you discern which rocks need to be moved, and which rocks do not need to be moved.<back to top> March 5 Read Matthew 12:46-50 As we have examined the rocks in our heart this week, most of these rocks we can deal with their need to be moved, and we can begin to open ourselves easily enough to ask God to move these rocks around. Today, we get personal. Today we take on the family. Our family is one of the biggest rocks in our heart. Our family is our entire life. Family is defined as spouse and children and parents and siblings and grandparents and uncles and aunts and even our closest friends. You most likely would do anything for a family member, including getting into harm’s way to protect a family member. Dedication and loyalty to family is admirable, and one of God’s many values. But again, much like the rock of wealth, we can get our value on family out of perspective. When we place our family higher than God, we have our perspective out of order. When we let family things get in the way of God things, we have our perspective out of order. Now the purpose of this devotion is not to give a right answer for how to keep family in the proper perspective. The purpose of this devotion is to invite you into prayer with God the creator. Jesus invited us to call God “Abba” which means “Daddy” in Aramaic. As we pray, Our Daddy, “Our Father”, helps us to put into the right perspective. As you prayed this week, you have learned just a few rocks that get into the garden of your heart. Some rocks are meant to stay in our garden. Some rocks are necessary in a garden. Some rocks are decorative and just because we are praying, God will not move all rocks. But that is why prayer is a journey of discovery. Prayer is about discovering with God what rocks are needing to be removed from the garden, which rocks can be moved around and used as decorative pieces in your garden, and which rocks will always be there. <back to top> March 6 No Devotional <back to top> March 7 Persons of Interest: Perpetua and Felicity and companions, martyrs at Carthage, died 202 <back to top> March 8 Thorny Soil: The Lord is our Shepherd Read Psalm 23 This week as we dive into God’s Word, we are going to explore prayer for the thorny soil in our life. In the Parable of the Farmer, Jesus describes four soils that exist in our hearts. Of the Thorny Soil, Jesus says this: “Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain.” Thorns are those things in life that hurt us. Some of these hurts are quick painful pokes, like when you grab a rose flower wrong and you feel the quick pinch of the thorn and you back away, and after a few moments you don’t feel the pain any more. Other thorns get into our side, like slivers, and it takes a needle or tweezers to get it out and the pain lasts longer. Sometimes, we feel we are constantly bombarded with thorns. It is a reality of life that we will deal with thorns, and as we pray, we undoubtedly often wonder why God would place all these thorns in our life. Our comforting 23rd Psalm reminds us God is like a shepherd, he is taking care of us. We may not always understand how, but God is taking care of us. As we pray about the thorns in our life, we learn to trust God as our shepherd, taking care of us day by day. Take a moment today and talk with God about a thorn currently in your life. Ask God to lead you beside still waters, and to protect you with his rod and his staff.<back to top> March 9 Thorny Soil: We are more than conquerors Read Romans 8:31-39 Since thorns hurt, they also distract us from truly believing in God. When we deal with the thorns of life –whether it is loss, injury, illness, job loss, or any number of other things that can be considered thorns in our life – we can very easily stop talking to God. We might even think God must be against us. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans something that is so encouraging that we cannot lose sight of it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. And he even lists a bunch of the things that the Christians in Rome were facing, and he tells them, none of that will separate them from the love of God. Wow. What assurance. What confidence. In our prayer life, even when we deal with thorns, this is the confidence and assurance that praying daily we can grow to. We can grow to have Paul’s confidence that even though life may poke us with many thorns, nothing can separate us from the love of God. And as we pray, and as we invite God to be the gardener of our life, we will discover the pain of the thorns is not nearly as lasting as it once was. Notice I said, as we pray the pain of the thorns will not be nearly as lasting. I did NOT say there will be no more thorns. As long as we have life, there will be thorns. They will get to us. If we let the thorns control our life, they will stay in our heart, and choke out our faithfulness. But if we let God be our gardener, the thorns will not stay in our heart; and though we will still get poked by thorns, God will be there with us. Remember the thorns Jesus wore on his head as the soldier mocked him with a crown of thorns. That is pain that Jesus experienced, and though he was killed, God raised Jesus to new life. We too, though we experience thorns in our life, will be raised by God – and the confidence and absolute trust in that promise comes as we pray – every day, trust God to be the gardener in our life. Take a moment today to pray: God, you know the thorns I face. You know how the thorns hurt me. Help me by weeding back these thorns, help me to grow in my faith toward you, so these thorns have no control over my life. In your name I pray. Amen <back to top> March 10 Thorny Soil: Hope keeps us going Read 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.” What powerful words of hope. A few years back there was the popular song “I get knocked down, but I get up again” and you can almost see these words from Paul as the inspiration for that song. Thorns in our life want to keep us knocked down. Thorns in our life want to keep the faith in God choked out and lead to despair and the pressing in feeling. The Word of God invites us into a relationship with God in which we discover that we are not crushed, not driven to despair, never abandoned by God, and not destroyed. So far all this week, we have talked about our own personal relationship with God and how prayer helps us discover this great relationship we can have with God. But God is more transformational than that. God can accomplish more than just tend to our own garden and our own hurts. Perhaps today, you know someone else who is being surrounded by thorns in their life. You can ask God to become the gardener for someone else too. God can start tending someone else’s heart, softening up the soil in their heart helping them to be ready to hear the word and hear the invite to be drawn into this relationship with God. Take a moment today and lift up a friend or a co-worker or a relative who is dealing with thorns in his or her life. Invite God to garden his or her heart, and prepare that person to receive the word, and to grow in faith. Persons of Interest: Harriet Tubman, died 1913; Sojourner Truth, died 1883, renewers of society<back to top> March 11 Thorny Soil: The thorn of loss Read Luke 7:11-17 Recently, a lifelong friend of mine suffered the loss of his father. While his father was recovering from an extended battle with cancer, the prognosis was positive. So his death was quite the shock. I attended the funeral service and my friend played “Amazing Grace” on his guitar. It was absolutely beautiful. The next day my friend said that he thought playing would be more difficult, but instead he found it therapeutic. There is perhaps no greater thorn stuck in our hearts than the thorn of loss of a loved one. It is a pain that does not easily go away. Nor should it go away easily. Death is something that is difficult to talk about. It is an experience that is sometimes very personal, and very private. It is also something that in our culture we think we can avoid. There are so many ads for products that are supposed to extend our life or slow the aging process. We have movements that try to make everything safer – which is good – but with some of the extreme measures makes you wonder if we should be living in a bubble. The recent study that said a reshaping of hot dogs would help prevent choking deaths is one of those extreme cases where we think as people that death can be avoidable. Unfortunately, death is not unavoidable. And while safety measures are necessary to prevent untimely and accidental deaths, death comes. And it hurts when we lose someone. It hurts a lot. When we deal with the death of a loved one, there can be feelings of anger toward God or anger toward the world for whatever the cause of death was. When we deal with the death of a loved one, there can be feelings of abandonment. This is when prayer is needed the most. And this is why it is so important to establish a prayer life before we deal with these kinds of thorns in our life. Certainly, God will listen no matter when we pray. Absolutely, God is always open to listening. Especially when we are dealing with the thorn of loss, God is there – as our shepherd, reminding us that we are more than conquerors, and giving us hope. And as we develop our discipline of prayer now, that discipline will help us to hear God’s comforting message when we are dealing with loss. Take a moment to day, and reflect on the last time you experienced the loss of a loved one. What helped you most through that time? How might a stronger prayer discipline – help you to hear God’s comfort during a time of loss? <back to top> March 12 Thorny Soil: When thorns help us Read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 This passage is unique. For all week long we have talked about how thorns hurt us and how our prayer life is a tool that we can use to invite God into our heart to tend to the garden there, and to prune back the weeds and the thorns that are choking out our faith. And in this passage by St. Paul, we hear something a bit different – “So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.” This thorn is a helpful thorn. And it sounds like God isn’t about to remove it from St. Paul anytime soon. What a contrasting image. Some thorns are helpful, Paul tells us. Now, this is not to say that God lets things happen to us so we can learn a lesson. Paul knew why this thorn was in his side. It was there for a reason. And Paul knew that reason because through prayer, God told him that was the reason it was there. Not always will we understand why we are going through something in our life. Not always will we understand why we have certain sins in our life. Yet, as we pray, we can begin to discern the reason God is walking through these times with us. In prayer we may discover that certain thorns are helpful to us. Romans 8:28 reads “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for him.” I call this the ultimate hindsight verse. This is not the verse to pull out when we are going through a loss, or dealing with a major crisis. This is a verse to keep in handy, to look at some time later. When I went to seminary, I was struggling with one of the committees I had to work with in convincing them that I should continue on and become a pastor. It was a very difficult time. I had to work very hard at discerning God’s will for me at that time. At that time, I was very frustrated by what I was going through. Years later, I can reflect on that time and see that God was shaping me into a more faithful person by what I went through. Now that was a harmless example if ever there was one. But again – as I look back, much like Paul looking back on his ministry, there was a thorn in my side, and I didn’t get it then, but I get it now. It was being used to help shape me into who I am today. Do you have a thorn in your side? Is it a particular sin that you just can’t figure out why you are dealing with it? Take it up with God in prayer. Lay it before God. Let God help you in prayer to discern why it is there for you. You may discover it is something God has been waiting for you to ask to remove from your life. You may discover God is leaving it there intentionally. But you can’t figure that out until you take it to the Lord in prayer. Person of Interest: Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, died 604<back to top> March 13 No Devotional <back to top> March 14 No Devotional <back to top> March 15 No Devotional <back to top> March 16 No Devotional <back to top> March 17 No Devotional <back to top> March 18 No Devotional <back to top> March 19 No Devotional <back to top> March 20 No Devotional <back to top> March 21 No Devotional <back to top> March 22 No Devotional <back to top> March 23 No Devotional <back to top> March 24 No Devotional <back to top> March 25 No Devotional <back to top> March 26 No Devotional <back to top> March 27 No Devotional <back to top> March 28 No Devotional <back to top> March 29 No Devotional <back to top> March 30 No Devotional <back to top> March 31 No Devotional <back to top> | 
