Category: Sister Judy (Page 259 of 271)

Devotions for 2-3 from Haase’s book on Living the Lord’s Prayer

As we have been wounded we need inner healing. The first step is that it is always done in the presence of Jesus who is the Divine Physician.  He is the one who heals, comforts, and consoles us.
Secondly we need to review the past event in depth as the wounds will not be healed if neglected.  The hurt must be brought into the light, recognized and treated. Healing is a gift and when the time is right the memory will float up in our awareness.  The third step is compassion when we momentarily step through our pain, anger, and hurt to place our feet in the shoes of the betrayer, to understand their heart. This can lead us to compassion and open up the choice to forgive them, but we must do this with humility. We may realize that people were doing the best that they could at the time. Fourthly we call on the healing ministry of Christ. We turn to Him and ask Him to minister to us. Where there was darkness to bring the light of His healing.  Sometimes He uses the help of others to unbind us, as Lazarus.  Fifthly is the proclamation of new life.  Over time the wounds stop bleeding and no longer drain us.  We begin to share the grace with others that God has already given to us. PTL!

.Devotions from Haase’s book Living the  Lord’s Prayer

To be sensitive to the hurt of another’s heart is the essence of merciful compassion. Our very eyes can show compassion to another, even when they are not asking for forgiveness.

In trying to understand the hearts of others and accepting them with compassion, we sometimes discover that what we thought was intentional was never intended. But if harm was intended it challenges us to offer mercy and forgiveness as many times as need be.

 As God’s forgiveness is limitless, so we are not to tire of sharing with others what we ourselves have enjoyed.
Sometimes we want to forgive but are so hurt we just don’t know how. Like Corrie ten Boom , we may need to ask the Lord for His forgiveness for someone who has hurt us and our loved ones so greatly. It is more than an act of the will, it is a grace from God. It may come quickly or it may take some time.

We can ask ourselves, “What am I gaining if I hang on to this hurt?  What need is it satisfying in me?” Often grudges are only the tip of an iceberg that point to deeper things. Maybe we think hanging on to a lingering past hurt justifies a pity party or the emotional need to be a victim.  
But these wounds can be transformed into the marks of resurrection when our desire for revenge is converted into mercy and forgiveness. As we forgive these wounds can  become our victory sign of God’s healing power!

 Devotions from Haase’s book on forgiveness

When we ask in the Lord’s prayer for God to forgive us we are showing we are aware of our own sinfulness and need. Our forgiveness of others is a paradigm for God’s forgiveness of us.  Jesus is remembered as saying that justice is not served by getting revenge and balancing the ledger but by generously sharing with others what we ourselves have experienced from God.  Forgiving our neighbor and performing selfless acts of sacrificial love is our response to God’s forgiveness. As we are sensitive to our need for forgiveness it helps us to take the first step in forgiving others and reconciling when possible.

Our ego conveniently forgets our own sinfulness due to its emotional need to protect and promote self-concern, self-image, self-preservation etc. It wants to enthrone itself on the seat of judgment and criticize others.  But as His followers we are only too aware of our own fragility, weakness and sinfulness. Because we have enjoyed his gift of forgiveness, we can accept others and renounce our own arrogance and self-righteousness.

Rather than have a “Velcro-personality” that holds grudges and hangs on to hurts, we should become “Teflon-personalities that let the hurts slide off. We might not forget, but we choose to forgive.  More tomorrow!

Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

As we think about the part of the Lord’s prayer of Forgive us our trespasses, we are aware that God doesn’t withhold mercy from anyone.  “Don’t set limits to the mercy of God. Don’t imagine that because you are not pleasing to yourself, you’re not pleasing to God.”  God loves us not because we are good but because God is good.  Bernard of Clairvaux said, “Every soul that stands under condemnation with nothing to say of itself has the power to turn and discover it can yet breathe the fresh air of God’s pardon and mercy.”

 We need only to come out of hiding and be found and embraced by our Father.  As His beloved, we are only a heart’s request away from forgiveness.  God is anxious and ready and eager to forgive.

His divine mercy transforms us from a sinner to a saint. He throws our sins into the ocean, forgets the past, and welcomes us home with wide-opened arms.

Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

When we pray “ Forgive us our trespasses” we are recognizing that God frees us from our guilt and forgets our past. In, fact, no sin is written in indelible ink! 
There is debilitating guilt and there is healthy guilt.

Debilitating guilt is when we allow our ego to become judge and prison guard, reminding us constantly of our sin and condemning us. It puts us behind prison bars of shame and our hearts become a straight jacket that constricts us. It convinces us to cower in shame and embarrassment.

But healthy guilt is when we honestly admit our sins, examine their roots and causes, learn from them and move on. Such guilt challenges us never to forget that God has the final word.  We are reminded that God is patient with our sinfulness and lavish with divine forgiveness.  He delights in taking our sins of past and throwing them into the sea where there is “No fishing allowed.”! When God forgives, He forgets.

We are also to be as merciful and forgiving with ourselves as our Father is with us. 
Like the story of the prodigal we need to accept what we are freely offered and recognize that forgiveness is a free gift.
So much of our spiritual formation is coming out of hiding and standing in the light and moving to repentance. The essence of repentance it so be transparent before God about our sinfulness, accept God’s forgiveness, and recommit to being our truest self.

Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” it is not just an act of humility but it is a commitment to become daily bread for others.

Jesus often ate with those who had been ostracized and condemned by the religious leaders.  In his table fellowship Jesus invited people for who they were, the beloved, and did not exclude them for what they had done.
He was the Bread of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness to them.

. There are so many hungry people in our world who are not just physically hungry but starving for affection, craving our time and attention, poor and sick, lonely, longing for meaning etc.

Our challenge is to become the bread that feeds the hungry people around us. We are called to feed others with selfless acts of sacrificial love. As His followers we are called to empty ourselves without counting the cost.

 As He did we are called to give ourselves to one another.  We are the Body of Christ on earth.

Today I had a lovely prayer walk on a road that no one has walked on since the latest snowfall. The sun was shining through the trees that were all frosted white and was breathtaking!  I saw so many animal tracks and even though I didn’t see the actual animals I know they are there. Often times that is how it is with the Lord as we can’t see Him physically, but He is there and with us. Some times the tracks were just that of just one deer and often times there were all sorts of them together, reminding me of our life with the Lord…sometimes in secret with Him and other times with many of His children, all fellowshipping together.

 Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

I like what Thomas Merton said: “The whole Christian life is a life in which the further a person progresses, the more he has to depend directly on God and it’s not the other way around at all…..The more we progress, the less we are self-sufficient. The more we progress, the poorer we get so that the man who has progressed most, is totally poor – he has to depend directly on God. He’s got nothing left in himself.

Thomas Merton also said there are two ways of spiritual formation. One is in response to God’s gifts and graces. It’s when we are in control and take charge and are taken up with external actions…like going to church, reading the scriptures, saying our prayers, fasting etc.  The second way is more contemplative and more childlike. It is simply to wait on the Lord, expect the Lord, and then abide in the Lord. The first approach can only take us so far and later we must surrender control, become receptive and have the humility to be led. “The willingness to be led by God shows the maturity and humility of the way of spiritual childhood.”

Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

As we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” we come to recognize our dependency and the futility of preserving and protecting self-concern, self-image, self-preservation and self-gratification.

Our ego tries to convince us that what is really important in life is based on what we have, what we do and what other people think of us. If we buy into the illusion we begin to take charge and become manipulative and demanding.

This independent self-sufficient approach is the refusal of grace and the failure to acknowledge God as the giver of all things. 
Self-sufficiency can only take us so far as sooner or later we run up against a brick wall and find out we are dependent after all.
“Growth in the spiritual life is measured by our awareness of our absolute dependence on Abba and our continual petition for daily bread.”  A great paradox: “ to mature is to become a child, poor, needy, helpless and dependent”. This is just another way of saying everything is a gift.

 Devotions from Living The Lord’s Prayer by Haase

As we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, we are admitting our dependency, helplessness and need. It is foolish to think we can make it on our own without God or without grace. Little children have no illusions that they are helpless and in need. When Jesus challenges us to become like children, he is saying that we need to like them in complete dependence on, and trust in their parents…just as we  are to be in respect to God.
St. Therese of Lisieux  describes what it means to remain a little child. It means we acknowledge our nothingness; that we expect everything from the Lord. It means to worry about nothing. It means to offer “flowers of little sacrifices” to the Lord which is selfless acts of sacrificial love for God and others.  It is affirmation that we are beggars and everything is a gift from God.
As His children “we walk the path of life with confidence in the generosity, forgiveness and compassion of Abba.”  Let us stay little before Him!

 Devotions from Living the Lord’s Prayer by Haase

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” we are recognizing the grace, goodness and generosity of God and trusting that He will provide for all our needs.
We are not independent, self-sufficient beings but really beggars in absolute dependency and poverty before God.
God is the starting point for everything but our ego wants to ease God out and take the credit that belongs to God.

Suffering can unmask our ego’s illusion of Self-sufficiency!

Everything is a gift. We can claim nothing as our own.  But through Jesus selfless, sacrificial love He transforms our poverty and dependency into the experience of life in abundance. ( II Cor. 8:9)

When we pray for something as ordinary as bread, it teaches us that nothing is too trivial for His concern. We can bring everything that concerns us to Him, no matter how small or insignificant.  God’s love has no limits; God’s grace has no measure; God’s concern has no boundary. We are the beloved of God and He is on our side.