"If we feel a disorder in our attachment to a person, to a job or position, to a certain dwelling place, a certain city, country, and so on, we should take it to the Lord and pray insistently to be given the grace to free ourselves from such a disorder. What we want above all is the ability to respond freely to God, and all other loves for people, places, and things are held in proper perspective by the light and strength of God's grace (Spiritual Exercises 16).
God's love always calls for a response. Sometimes that response is natural. It sort of bubbles out of us in praise and prayer, service and selflessness. Still, often times we hoard God's love and forget to respond in ways that honour and glorify him. Today is all about growing in the interior freedom we need to orient our responses and our very lives to God. So stand in the shower of God's love and grace and mercy, but also make an intentional response today.
Using Composition of Place (see sidebar from Day 1 for instructions) pray through the following passages.
John5:1-15
Mark 10-17-22
Questions to Reflect On:
- What helps me grow in gratitude for and stewardship of the gifts I have been given by God?
- In what ways do I tend to control my life and treat it as my possession rather than to embrace it freely as God's gift to me?
- What do I need to do to balance the different aspects of my life?
- What people, places, and things need to be given a different priority in my life in order to acknowledge God as the source and end of my life?
Suggestion for daily living: In conversations notice what you do and what you say when you are feeling unfree or attached to an idea, a project, a person, or an approach to a task?
Click on Comments to view Pastor Mike's Reflections and to make comments of your own.