Morning Prayer

Frequently I start the day in prayer in a room in my home that is the prayer room.
This year we are working our way as a congregation through the whole Bible. So I begin with reading whatever is the reading of that day.
Sometimes I get through it and sometimes I get stopped in the middle with a word, or a phrase or a thought.
This week we are reading Jeremiah and it continually is disturbing me. Jeremiah has been called by God to speak God's word to God's people. And it is a harsh word. It is a word that says that you have been faithless to me - you have "gone after worthless things and you become worthless." You have ignored the living water and dug cisterns that are cracked. Lots of ways of saying that you have turned away from God and worshipped other Gods.And God is going to allow the enemies (Assyrians and Babylonians) to defeat the people of Israel.

I marvel at the poetry of this. And I see myself everywhere - the one who is called to speak the hard truths and the one who is also going after worthless things and becoming worthless.

Reading this invariably leads me to my journal which tends to be prayers that focus on the two basic prayers that Anne Lamott mentions in Traveling Mercies. "Thank you" and "Help me"
I feel grateful for the amazing blessings of the fulness of my life and at the same time - in these moments completely inadequate to the task of pastoring the church. Knowing when to speak, what speak, when to keep silent. It is a continual challenge that I often fail. Thank God for the grace of God.

These mornings are so important to centering my soul as I continue to live this life and this calling. I wish I did this every morning, but I do not. I spoke to my spiritual director about the fact that I am (and have always been) sporadic in morning devotions, (keep to it for a couple of weeks and then stop and then come back again!!)and she asked this question: "Do you think that God misses you?"

Why does that questions startle me so much? I think I have been so self centered that I think that the morning devotions are all about me.

I pray for the grace and mercy of God and that God will continue to grow me in my own personal faith.

Lord, Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, Have Mercy on Me a Sinner