Daily Office Readings for Thursday of Proper 28: Year 2
Morning, Psalm 105:1to22; Evening, Psalm 105:23 to 45
Malachi 2:1to16; James 4:13 to 5:6; Luke 17:20 to 37
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.” (James 4:13 to 16)
None of us knows what tomorrow will bring. The best we can do is to live the best life we can for this day. By the best life, I mean, to the benefit of our community, not to the enhancement of one’s self. We should never say to ourselves that “I will go and do this or that,” without praying that such an act will be done only if it is the Lord’s will. Remember the prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” In our Luke lesson for today, Jesus says, “For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:21). We live into the Kingdom of God daily.
Writing this blog has changed my life and the prospect of being a traveler. I now don’t ever want to be in a place that doesn’t have a good Wi-Fi connection. I need to be able to get my next day’s blog out, if it is the Lord’s will to do so. So I am content to stay here in Raeford, North Carolina, studying the Word, learning more and more about the World Wide Church that I love, and writing the Good News to all who will read it.
How about you? What is it that the Lord has blessed you to do? I have read somewhere that where your passion, and your community’s needs meet, is where God wants you to be, and what God wants you to do. Your passion, if it is a noble vocation, is your ministry. Pursue it. We are truly only here for a little while. But while we are here, we have the Lord’s work to do.
Today we remember two sets of the faithful:
Mechthilde of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great; Mystics and Theologians, 1298 and 1302: who can be found at: Mechtilde of Hackeborn & Gertrude the Great: and also;
William Byrd, John Merbecke and Thomas Tallis; Musicians, 1623, 1585 and 1585 who can be found at: William Byrd, John Merbecke & Thomas Tallis.
All these saints are mystics or musicians or both.
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools. And, as we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray:
Most Holy Lord God, as you have a divine plan for all life and humanity in particular, we pray you lead us and guide us so as to bring heaven into our lives now and be with each of us as we say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ In your most holy Name we pray: Amen.
onewhoponders 