Daily Devotion for Wednesday 26th June 2024
Reading Romans 8, 5-11
For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness. Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you.
Reflection
Living as with the openness and awe of a small child. Saying yes to life’s meaning. Always being prepared for the unexpected and accepting it, whatever it is, and then living it. Not expecting to control and direct one’s life, except to live it as God’s.
Dag Hammarskjöld talked about each day being lived as the first day of our life, a life in itself, and each morning we hold our glass out in order to receive the drink, which we then pour out from our cup for other people. God gives Himself as at Communion. We have no reason for pride if we live as God wills, we are simply passing on to others what God has given us.
If we live in this way, God fills the empty cup that we hold out to Him. We allow God, and God accepts for Himself, to be the life within our life. He is the one who gives our life meaning, not we ourselves. God becomes the “I” of my life.
Faith isn’t about what we think, how we describe our thoughts about God, life and existence. Faith is about God being within us and our saying yes to the life that he leads us to live.
Faith is the knowledge that God lives with me, is ready within each one of us, and accepting that. But we need to accept that it is God living within us. It may seem like a loss of control but it is the ultimate decision we can make with our life.
And as we live with God, we live with openness and acceptance within each moment.
“Each day is the first! Each day a life.” (DH)
Prayer
Lord, help us to open ourselves to you,
to let you be the meaning in our lives.
May we be open to receive what you give us.
May we be ready to pass on to others
something they need from what you’ve given us.
Help us to be ready to let our self fall into the background,
and you to come to the fore,
as we meet with and speak with your children each day. Amen