Devotional - Thursday, February 15, 2007

East Heights Daily Devotional
Thursday, February 15, 2007

1 Corinthians 13: 1-3
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I closed yesterday with words of prayer formed from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Today’s scripture is the passage that appears just before yesterday’s.

Those who know me know I’m restless, busy, always juggling several activities – at times in my life that’s been both self-defeating and destructive to my relationships with others, and with God. My busy-ness can be a form of maintaining distance. I have a couple things in my office that help remind me (Selah) to break that cycle.  One is a woodcut of two ducks that Robin got me.  It says “Behave like a Duck” and then in smaller print “be calm on the surface but paddle like crazy underneath!”  It’s a good reminder for me to harness the energy rather than letting it run my life.  The other is a reflection that Jon used at one of my first staff meetings after being hired at East Heights.

It has been my observation that all great praying me are simple, relaxed men. Mrs. Thomas A. Edison once said to me "Mr. Edison's methods are just like yours. He is always perfectly natural and always perfectly relaxed. He feels that all of his discoveries have "come through him," that he is but a channel for forces greater than himself."

Always natural, and always relaxed! I do not like to see men work too hard at their prayers. Beware lest the zeal of they house shall eat thee up. When one strains and labors over his dream he is often carving ivory and not polishing horn. Don't cut too deeply, don't carve too hard, don't pain the picture too much yourself. Get still awhile and let God paint through you. Wrote Gutzon Borglum, "When I carve a statue, it is very simple. I merely cut away the pieces that don't belong there and the statue itself presently comes into view. It was there... all the time."

From I will Lift Up Mine Eyes - by Glenn Clark.

I keep that one on my computer screen and its lesson is valuable. When I try to be in control I struggle, when I pause and allow the spirit to guide me words flow, opportunities open.  I’m still learning this lesson, but again and again the wisdom in the passage is reinforced for me. Life is best in relationship with God, a relationship in which I am neither passive nor in control, but actively living surrounded by God’s Love. Slowly I’m learning the habits that make a life of prayer possible, and through that prayer learning to embrace, and be embraced by, Love.

Prayer:
Generous God,
So many times I’ve come a stranger to my spirit
              crammed with cultural noise
              caught in endless clutter
              crowding my inner space

And you have emptied

Generous God
I come to you again
           holding out my waiting cup
           begging that it first
                        be emptied
           of all that blocks the way
Then asking for its filling
            With love that tastes like you
Amen.
Today’s Prayer was written by Joyce Rupp, taken from her book “The Cup of our Life”

Devotions this week are written by:

Christopher Eshelman
Director of Adult Christian Education, East Heights United Methodist Church
Ceshelman@ehumc.org / 682-6518
www.ehumc.org