Grace and Peace on this Saturday! Hope you’re having a good day.
The best way I know to make this or any day “good” is start your day with prayer. Prayer centers you in God’s grace. It focuses your mind and heart on Christ’s presence. It opens you to God’s working. It invites you to “share your load” and walk with the Lord. Nothing beats a day started with prayer!
Since we want not only today, but also tomorrow and worship to be a blessing, prayer is also what we do! Through prayer we ready our hearts, open our minds, and prepare our wills to receive and respond to all God Is giving.
Be deliberate and focused. Take time and “be still”. Find a quiet place. Claim a “peaceful space”. Let the Lord lead you “beside still waters to restore your soul”. Psalm 23 is one of the best “centering Psalms”, guiding you into deeper time with God.
After we have readied ourselves with prayer, then we can shift our focus to tomorrow’s message. We pray for the word we have discerned from the words of Scripture to be God’s Holy Word, guiding us into greater lives of love.
How would you pray for our worship tomorrow? Through what you have discerned, how would you ask God to be at work in your life and in the lives of others?
Our theme for the week has been our relationships. As Ecclesiastes says, “Two are better than one.”
That “in-between” blessing is predicated on God’s active grace in the space between you and another. One prayer might be that we be sensitive to the Spirit that “moves in the middle”.
Another prayer may be that we would be more deliberate in “weaving Christ”, the “third strand”, into our conversations and our actions with others. How can you be more attentive to “Listening, Learning, and Loving”? How would you ask God to help?
As you look at the message you discerned for the week, how does it call you to follow? How would your prayer prepare you to faithfully respond to what God has revealed?
In some ways, Saturday is the most important day in the Pastor’s Workshop. We can prepare our minds all week by studying and thinking, but Saturday takes what we learn and discern to a different level of faith and following.
In that blessing of prayer I’m glad to be with you today and look forward to worship with you tomorrow on Mother’s day. It will all be good because “God is good!”
See you tomorrow!
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for the privilege of prayer. Thank you for the opportunity you give us to center ourselves in You and Your saving love. Thank you how You are at work in Your grace. Thank You for how we are part of that work as we “weave Christ” into our relationships and find how “Three is better than two is better than one”. In Christ’s precious name we pray. Amen