Praying to Die Well

Many people say, "I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying." This is quite understandable, since dying often means illness, pain, dependency, and loneliness.
The fear of dying is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the most human of all human fears. Jesus himself entered into that fear. In his anguish "sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44). How must we deal with our fear of dying? Like Jesus we must pray that we may receive special strength to make the great passage to new life. Then we can trust that God will send us an angel to comfort us, as he sent an angel to Jesus.

- Henri Nouwen

Emptiness and Fullness

Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.
We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same. When he had given all away to his Abba, his dear Father, he cried out, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). He who was lifted up on the cross was also lifted into the resurrection. He who had emptied and humbled himself was raised up and "given the name above all other names" (see Philippians 2:7-9). Let us keep listening to Jesus' question: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22).

- Henri Nouwen

A Mother's Persistence In Prayer

The story is told of Monica, the mother of St. Augustine. This fourth-century woman had a son who was so perverse that almost anyone else's child would have been considered to be no problem at all in comparison. But through Augustine's difficult years of rebellion, Monica never stopped praying for her son and she lived for the time when he might give his life over to God.
One day, Augustine announced to his mother that he was leaving his home in the city of Hippo to live in Rome. He wanted to go to the big city where the action was, and he let it be known that Hippo was no place for a lover of nightlife, like himself. When she heard the news, Monica's heart broke. She was sure that by going away to Rome her son would be lost to her and to God forever. She begged Augustine not to do this and, in an act of desperation, pleaded with him to go and sit with her in the church while she prayed about it. He yielded to his mother's request that he go to church with her, but while Monica was on her knees in prayer, Augustine sneaked off to the harbor and boarded a ship sailing for Rome. When Monica discovered what had happened, she was deeply hurt, but she never despaired; she just kept on hoping and praying.
While in Rome, Augustine quite miraculously came to Christ through the witness of St. Ambrose. Under Ambrose, he was nurtured into Christian discipleship, and when it was learned that the city of Hippo needed a new bishop to lead their church, Ambrose recommended the once wayward son of that town for the office.
Can you imagine the surprise and joyful amazement of Monica the day she went down to the dock with others from her church to meet their new pastor? None other than her own Augustine walked down the gangplank! The mother who never gave up on her son had been rewarded. Monica's story is a reminder to mothers everywhere that where there's life, there's hope.

- Tony Campolo in "Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God"

Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree

Some years ago author Samuel Coleridge wrote a book called "Youth and Age" in which he reflected over his past and the strength of his younger years. One of the most moving lines in his entire book is the statement: "Friendship is a sheltering tree...".
How true...how terribly true! When the searing rays of adversity's sun burn their way into our day, there's nothing quite like a sheltering tree - a true friend - to give us relief in its cool shade. Its massive trunk of understanding gives security as its thick leaves of love wash our face and wipe our brow. Beneath its branches many discouraged souls have found rest.
Beneath whose branches are you refreshed today? Should I remind you that a real, genuine, deep, solid friend is exceedingly rare? Either you're still looking through the forest... or, like me, you're enjoying shade and shelter today beside your God-given tree.

- Don Cuff

Drinking the Cup

After firmly holding the cups of our lives and lifting them up as signs of hope for others, we have to drink them. Drinking our cups means fully appropriating and interiorising what each of has acknowledged as our life, with all its unique sorrows and joys.
How do we drink our cups? We drink them as we listen in silence to the truth of our lives, as we speak in trust with friends about ways we want to grow, and as we act in deeds of service. Drinking our cups is following freely and courageously God's call and staying faithfully on the path that is ours. Thus our life cups become the cups of salvation. When we have emptied them to the bottom, God will fill them with "water" for eternal life.

- Henri Nouwen

As I Grow Older

Lord, as I grow older, I think I would rather be known as …
- thoughtful, rather than gifted,
- loving, versus quick or bright,
- gentle, over being powerful,
- a listener, more than a great communicator,
- available, rather than a hard worker,
- sacrificial, instead of successful,
- reliable, not famous,
- content, more than driven,
- self-controlled, rather than exciting,
- generous, instead of rich,
- and compassionate, more than competent,
I want to be a foot-washer.

source unknown

God's powerlessness

Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel. The great mystery of God becoming human is God's desire to be loved by us. By becoming a vulnerable child, completely dependent on human care, God wants to take away all distance between the human and the divine.
Who can be afraid of a little child that needs to be fed, to be cared for, to be taught, to be guided? We usually talk about God as the all-powerful, almighty God on whom we depend completely. But God wanted to become the all-powerless, all-vulnerable God who completely depends on us. How can we be afraid of a God who wants to be "God-with-us" and needs us to become "Us-with-God"?

- Henri Nouwen

Light, Life And Hope

"What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:3b-5 NRSV)

What might happen to us and within us and among us if we were indeed to prepare our hearts and follow the star...?
We might begin to believe that the Light will indeed shine in the darkness and that the darkness will never overcome it. We might begin to know in our hearts that no darkness that we find ourselves in is too dark for us after all, that the One who made us will come searching for us again and again, choosing to come and be among us, choosing to share in that darkness and to burst it apart with light and life and hope.

- Robert Benson in "The Night of the Child"

A Defining Moment In History

"So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God is with us'." (Matthew 1:22,23 NKJV)
I have often referenced the quote by the talk show host Larry King, in his response to a particular question: "If you could select any one person across all of history to interview, who would it be?" Mr. King's answer was that he would like to interview Jesus Christ. When the questioner followed with, "And what would you like to ask Him?" King replied, "I would like to ask Him if he was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me."

- Ravi Zacharias in "Questions I Would Like to Ask God"

Clothing

All these changes did the Merciful One make,
stripping off glory and putting on a body;
for He had devised a way to reclothe Adam
in that glory which he had stripped off.
He was wrapped in swaddling clothes,
corresponding to Adam's leaves,
he put on clothes
in place of Adam's skins;
He was baptised for Adams sin,
He was embalmed for Adam's death,
He rose and raised Adam up in His glory.
Blessed is He who descended
put Adam on and ascended.

St Ephrem the Syrian
Hymns on the Nativity XXIII.13
Translated by Sebastian Brock

Lifting the Cup

When we hold firm our cups of life, fully acknowledging their sorrows and joys, we will also be able to lift our cups in human solidarity. Lifting our cups means that we are not ashamed of what we are living, and this gesture encourages others to befriend their truths as we are trying to befriend ours. By lifting up our cups and saying to each other, "To life" or "To your health," we proclaim that we are willing to look truthfully at our lives together. Thus, we can become a community of people encouraging one another to fully drink the cups that have been given to us in the conviction that they will lead us to true fulfillment.

- Henri Nouwen

On the Journey Towards Accepting my Fears

"Sometimes it's really hard to get up in the morning," the rabbi told us.
He was middle-aged, but he had a very young, enthusiastic spirit as he told us about his synagogue in Jerusalem where people with intellectual disabilities not only were welcome but had become key members of the community. We laughed as he told us funny stories about how people with disabilities had helped to break down barriers between groups in his synagogue. He acknowledged that his congregation's openness to people with intellectual disabilities had caused some to leave - yet far more new people had joined, attracted by the spirit of acceptance and inclusion.
The rabbi also shared with us some of his own story - about meeting his wife on a kibbutz and, with her, making the decision to stay in Israel and raise their children, now talented young adults off on their own. This remarkable man told us all that, but what I remember, word for word, was that one sentence of admission, "Sometimes it's really hard to get up in the morning." We had asked him what it was like to live in the midst of such conflict and insecurity, and he had told us the truth.
It is sometimes hard for me too. I don't live in war-torn Israel, but some mornings I am also afraid of the day. I am grateful for having met that vulnerable rabbi that day in Jerusalem. He took the risk to share with us the humanity of his fear. His story gave me courage to accept my own.

- Carl MacMillan

Holding the Cup

We all must hold the cups of our lives. As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life - personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene - everything within and around us conspires to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows. "Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it," we say to ourselves and hear others say to us. But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows.

- Henri Nouwen

Evil and the Crucified God

'What, after all, would it look like if the true God came to deal with evil? Would he come in a blaze of glory, in a pillar of cloud and fire, surrounded by legions of angels? Jesus of Nazareth took the total risk of speaking and acting as if the answer to the question were this: when the true God comes back to deal with evil, he will look like a young Jewish prophet journeying to Jerusalem at passover-time, celebrating the kingdom, confronting the corrupt authorities, feasting with his friends, succumbing in prayer and agony to a cruel and unjust fate, taking upon himself the weight of Israel's sin, the world's sin, Evil with a capital E. When we look at Jesus in this way we discover that the cross has become for us the new Temple, the place where we go to meet the true God and know him as saviour and redeemer. The cross becomes the place of pilgrimage where we stand and gaze at what was done for each one of us. The cross becomes the sign that pagan empire, symbolized in the might and power of sheer brutal force, has been decisively challenged by a different power, the power of love, the power that shall win the day.'

- N.T. Wright, 'Evil and the Justice of God', p 62

Time To Prepare

Advent is a season of preparation. During Advent, we know that we are about to celebrate Christ's birth, which is cause for joy. But we may also feel a little nervous, wondering if this event is more than we can handle. This seems natural; after all, we are about to celebrate a life-changing, world-changing event. Christ's birth is no easy thing to understand. As we anticipate an event of such mystery and magnitude, perhaps we sense that we need some time to prepare. Thankfully, Advent offers us this gift of time.

- Sarah Parsons

Drink Deeply

The God of love and liberation remembers who we are and who we can be. This Divine Artist sees beneath the surface of our worst behaviour the depths and heights of our actions, the light and shadow of our motivations, and the length and breadth of our capacity for compassion and love.
On this day, if you and I will only listen to this amazing God, we will discover God' s great care for us. We are the flock of God's own keeping. We are the creation of God's own hand. Come quietly into God's presence. Envision the natural world through which we journey. Offer to God your own unique echo of the music of the seas and the weather; join in the celebration of the birds and the fields. Raise your sights to the stars and the galaxies. Just beneath the surface of our daily routine runs the living water of an everlasting spring. Strike it in faith. Drink deeply. Draw strength for today.

- Diane Luton Blum in "The Upper Room Disciplines 2002"

If We Pray, God Will Hear

"But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Saviour; my God will hear me."
(Micah 7:7, NIV)

If you're like me, you have those times in your Christian walk when you think that God's not listening. "He has better things to do," you think, "than listen to me pray for the umpteenth time about this problem." When I start to have those thoughts, it helps me to remember that God created the universe out of nothing, and He is constantly involved in upholding it. And even more importantly, He loves to hear the prayers of His children because He created us to pray, to need Him. He may not answer right away, but he does listen. When we pray, God's listening as intently to us as a new mother listens to her sleeping infant.
We truly live in a universe that is saturated by God and His love, and we can agree with Micah that "God will hear me."

- Matt Donnelly, Christianity Online

The Wonderful Truth

God's astounding and radical intervention in our human history cannot be contained in the tame and timid displays of Christmas lights, catchy slogans, or the exchange of gifts.
Advent confronts us once again with God's unparalleled effort to communicate the message that all humankind is embraced and held close by a God of love. Jesus Christ has come, is present with us, and will come again in final victory when all darkness, pain, and evil will be no more.
In Advent we begin again to try to make plain the wonderful truth of the most extraordinary good news the world has ever heard. Soon we will join the angelic chorus in singing, "Christ the Savior is born."

- Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job in "A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God"

With Devastating Humility

By far the most significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated, with or without understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to it. God’s intervening into human history came about with an almost frightening quietness and self-effacement, and as millions will testify, he will come once again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any heart ready to receive him.

- J. B. Phillips

The Cup of Life

When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22). "Can we drink the cup?" is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?
Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.

- Henri Nouwen

God's Generosity

God is a god of abundance, not a god of scarcity. Jesus reveals to us God's abundance when he offers so much bread to the people that there are twelve large baskets with leftover scraps (see John 6:5-15), and when he makes his disciples catch so many fish that their boat nearly sinks (Luke 5:1-7). God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.
God is a generous giver, but we can only see and enjoy God's generosity when we love God with all of our hearts, minds, and strength. As long as we say, "I will love you, God, but first show me your generosity," we will remain distant from God and unable to experience what God truly wants to give us, which is life and life in abundance.

- Henri Nouwen

Signposts on the Way to God

How do we know about God's love, God's generosity, God's kindness, God's forgiveness? Through our parents, our friends, our teachers, our pastors, our spouses, our children ... they all reveal God to us. But as we come to know them, we realise that each of them can reveal only a little bit of God. God's love is greater than theirs; God's goodness is greater than theirs; God's beauty is greater than theirs.
At first we may be disappointed in these people in our lives. For a while we thought that they would be able to give us all the love, goodness, and beauty we needed. But gradually we discover that they were all signposts on the way to God

- Henri Nouwen

Through Me

Through me let there be kind words,
a warm smile, and a caring heart.
Through me let there be a willingness to listen
and a readiness to understand.
Through me let there be dependability,
steadfastness, trust and loyalty.
Through me let there be compassion,
forgiveness, mercy and love.
Through me let there be every quality
I find, O Lord, in Thee.

source unknown

Gratefully Sharing The Good News

Gratitude causes us to share the gospel of Christ boldly. We want others to experience this great thing that Christ has done in us. This truth is beautifully illustrated in a story my teacher, Dr. J. T. Seamands, loved to tell about a clubfooted boy in England. He lived in a small town with his widowed mother. Because of his deformity he could not walk properly. A businessman, who was a friend of the family, visited them one day and told them of a doctor in London who was having great success in operating on young people with club feet. "If you will give me permission," said the friend, "I will take your son to London and see what this doctor can do for him. I will take care of all the expenses." The mother gratefully accepted the offer.
The boy was taken to London. The operation was a success. The businessman kept the mother informed of her son's progress. Finally she got a telegram saying that the businessman and her son would be returning by train.
The mother could hardly believe her eyes as she saw the son walking up to her. He leaped into her arms and started to say, "Mother, I will ... " but that is as far as he got. The mother stopped him and said, "Son, don't say a word. Just run up and down the platform and let Mother see how you can do it."
He ran up and down once or twice and then went to his mother and began to say something. But again she cut him short and had him run up and down the platform. Finally, the mother was satisfied and the son was able to say what he wanted to say. "Mother, I will never be satisfied until you meet the doctor in London. He's the most wonderful man in the world."
Evangelism is just like that. It is a grateful person sharing with another what Christ has done in his life and can do in this other person's life too. As D. T. Niles used to say, "Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

- Ajith Fernando in "The Christian's Attitude Toward World Religions"

Sharing Freely Our Knowledge

Often we think that we do not know enough to be able to teach others. We might even become hesitant to tell others what we know, out of fear that we won't have anything left to say when we are asked for more.
This mind-set makes us anxious, secretive, possessive, and self-conscious. But when we have the courage to share generously with others all that we know, whenever they ask for it, we soon discover that we know a lot more than we thought. It is only by giving generously from the well of our knowledge that we discover how deep that well is.

- Henri Nouwen

Seeing the Miracle of Multiplication

The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say: "There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love ... everything." With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.
When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love ... everything. There will even be many leftovers.

- Henri Nouwen

The Temptation to Hoard

As fearful people we are inclined to develop a mind-set that makes us say: "There's not enough food for everyone, so I better be sure I save enough for myself in case of emergency," or "There's not enough knowledge for everyone to enjoy; so I'd better keep my knowledge to myself, so no one else will use it" or "There's not enough love to give to everybody, so I'd better keep my friends for myself to prevent others from taking them away from me." This is a scarcity mentality. It involves hoarding whatever we have, fearful that we won't have enough to survive. The tragedy, however, is that what you cling to ends up rotting in your hands.

- Henri Nouwen

For the Second Sunday of Advent

It is Advent again. We call this time Advent because it reminds us of what comes from God for the creation of his kingdom on earth. There are many today who sigh to heaven, “Saviour, come now!” But they are not sighing for the sake of God’s kingdom. They cry out like this only when they are in trouble and want God to help them. And they don’t know of any help that is more effective than to have a Saviour come and put a quick end to their troubles.
When it comes to the things of God, however, we must not be concerned for what is ours, but only for what belongs to Christ. We should do this not merely for our own edification; we must become workers for God. This leads us to God’s vineyard, a place where there is not a great deal of talk, but where everyone is intent on deeds.

- C. F. Blumhardt

Cultural Strength

Like an effective sports coach it is essential to get to know both the strengths and the weaknesses of each culture and to position them accordingly. This idea is hinted at in a poster found in Switzerland that declares:

HEAVEN is
a French chef,
a German engineer,
an Italian lover
and everything organized by the Swiss.

HELL is
an English chef,
a German police officer,
a French engineer,
a Swiss lover
and everything organized by an Italian.

Cultural appreciation is also vital in matters of faith. Highlighting the various forms of Christian expression someone said:
The English love the Gospel because it gives them something to talk about.
The Welsh love the Gospel because it gives them something to sing about.
The Irish love the Gospel because it gives them something to fight about.
The Scots love the Gospel because it gives them something for nothing!
Affirming our language and appreciating our unique cultural gifts is one of the first steps in building a community.

source unknown

Prayer Presence

We often have a kind of notion, as part of this highfalutin, noble picture of ourselves as pray-ers, that when we pray we need to be completely attentive and we need to be fully engaged and we need to be concentrating and we need to be focused. But the fact is, if prayer is our end of a relationship with God, that's not the way we are with the people we love a large portion of the time. We simply are in their presence. We're going about our lives at the same time in each other's presence, aware and sustained by each other, but not much more than that. However we are, however we think we ought to be in prayer, the fact is we just need to show up and do the best we can do. It's like being in a family.

- Roberta Bondi

Whose Advent?

Though Advent (literally "arrival") has been observed for centuries as a time to contemplate Christ's birth, most people today acknowledge it only with a blank look. For the vast majority of us, December flies by in a flurry of activities, and what is called "the holiday season" turns out to be the most stressful time of the year.
It is also a time of contrasting emotions. We are eager, yet frazzled; sentimental, yet indifferent. One minute we glow at the thought of getting together with our family and friends; the next we feel utterly lonely. Our hope is mingled with dread, our anticipation with despair. We sense the deeper meanings of the season but grasp at them in vain; and in the end, all the bustle leaves us frustrated and drained.

Charles Moore