You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; May the Lord be the light on your path this day. Follow him and you will find joy. The way may not always be easy, there will be obstacles. Journey on toward God and he will be your light.
Prayer God of Light Show me the path that you have for me to follow. Give me the courage to follow it. Amen
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For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. Deep lakes surrounded by tall and imposing mountains tell of the greatness of our Creator, God, for he holds these massive mountains in his hands. And if he can hold these mountains in his hands then he can and will hold us in his hands. May your heart be filled with joy and praise to our great God.
Prayer O Great King We bow in awe and wonder at your greatness. We praise your name. Amen My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. I am not sure why but mountains always make me think about strength. Maybe it is because climbing a mountain takes a lot of physical strength and ability. Maybe it is because they stand so tall and imposing like impenetrable fortress walls. We all face mountains in our lives that seem impossible to summit. But God promises to be our strength when we face our mountains, even when facing the mountain makes our heart grow faint and strength seems beyond our reach.
Prayer Strong and Mighty Lord Strengthen our hearts to face the mountains that stand before us today. Make them a place to grow closer to you and teach us to depend on your strength when our flesh and heart fail us. Help us to see the beauty in the mountains we face. Amen The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Sometimes I think I have always been a planner. It is a skill that has served me well in the past and still does today. As I learned from my teaching years, if I want a good lesson that will help students learn then I need a good plan. But if I am more concerned about the plan then the students then the lesson will fail. My planning skills have also carried over into my photography. If I want a good picture of sunflowers then I must know where they are growing, when the sun will rise, predicted weather for a specific day, camera equipment, and time I will need to get to the place - and them make a plan. However I have learned that if I focus to much on the plans then I can miss beauty that God has for me that day. Planning is a good thing, but we must be careful to be open to the Lord’s plan. It is God who will make our steps secure when we walk with him and only when we walk with him will our heart finds its passion and plan.
Prayer Master Planner, Guide our planning but keep us from following a plan so closely that we miss the beauty you have for us. Open our hearts to your plan for us. Amen By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; In the days of John Oliver building a home in the mountains was not an easy thing. There were no construction companies. Each family built their own home from lumber they cut from the land. Many times men from other families would help in the building. Today most people don’t physically build their own houses but each family must build their home. This is not easy work. Building a good home requires wisdom and understanding. Families do this best when they build their homes on the strong foundation of the Lord and develop wisdom based on a knowledge of God’s word. With such knowledge homes are filled with beauty and provide rich memories for all who live and grow up in them.
Prayer Great Builder of Homes We ask for wisdom for our families so we can build good, sure, and loving homes. Amen If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, While you can see flowers many places, there is something special about seeing many flowers of different varieties all in one place in a garden. Gardens require lots of work. They require a knowledge of flowers and soils and insects. If you have ever even planted a few flowers in a flower bed you know the work and also the joy of seeing the flowers you planted bloom. We are called to be gardens that bring beauty to the world where we live by caring for those who are hungry and afflicted. This will take the hard work of building a garden but God promises to keep our gardens watered with a source of water that will never fail, even when we must build our gardens in difficult places. Being sensitive to the needs of others brings beauty and peace not only to the ones that need the care but the ones who do the work of caring.
Prayer Our God, Master Gardner, Give us the strength and guidance we need to help those who need our help. Make our lives like well watered gardens that offer beauty and peace to those around us. Amen For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. This is the time of year when students of all ages are going back to school after summer vacation. New teachers, new schools, new learnings are ahead. In our culture we want quick answers, tips and tricks, but wisdom doesn’t come this way. True wisdom grows only from time spent being with God and studying his word. As we take time and develop the discipline of study, we find your wisdom. And in this wisdom do we find hope to walk in this world.
Prayer Great Teacher Be with all students as they return to their classrooms. Encourage us as we study your word and develop in us a discipline of study. Show us the encouragement and hope needed to live in our world that is only found when we study your word and learn to walk close to you. Amen Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. The mountains are filled with beautiful streams. I think I could sit for many hours beside a cool mountain stream to watch the water spill over the rocks and listen to the sound of the water. Often when I face a hard time I picture myself by a mountain stream doing just that. This proverb tells me another way to be refreshed - to refresh others. When I take the time to actually see the needs of others and do even the smallest thing to show that I notice their difficult time it refocuses my vision away from myself and I am refreshed.
Prayer Loving Father Thank you for cool mountain streams and for all the people who have taken the time to water my life. Open my eyes to those around me who could use a drink and make me a little blessing to them this day. Amen I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. There is just something about this tree across from the Lawson place in the cove. I have taken and shared pictures of it in all seasons, at different times of day, in different weather conditions, and from different viewpoints. Every time I go to the cove, I always stop at this tree. And every time there is a new emotion, something new to learn from its beauty. I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing and photographing this tree because I haven’t yet been able to capture in my picture what I feel in my heart. I want my praise to God to be like this. I want to always praise him no matter the season of life. I want to learn to praise him in new ways. I want to invite others to join in praise with me.
Prayer Beautiful Savior, I am amazed at your wonder and beauty. May I ever sing your praise. Amen Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Most of us each morning awaken to work of some kind, whether it be in a hay field, our home, an office, or a classroom. We seek to find satisfaction in our work. Some of us work so hard that we become work obsessed, thinking that if we just work a little harder we will be valuable. But satisfaction and self-worth only come from knowing that we are valuable in the eyes of our loving Lord. He never asks us to be perfect and there is no work we can do that will earn his love. It is a gift, mercy unmerited and inexplicable. When we begin each morning rejoicing over the steadfast love of our father, over time we find a joy and satisfaction in our lives that could never be accomplished by the quality of our work and won’t be quenched.
Prayer Steadfast and Sure Lord God Open our eyes to your love this morning. Bring joy to our work today and may all that we do bring glory to you. Amen Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. I live among rolling hills and mountains, so seeing prairie grasslands on our trip out west was new to me. At first I thought I wouldn’t like the prairie, that it would be boring without green fields, trees, and mountains. But I was wrong, for I found beauty in the soft muted colors of the prairie. There was a gentleness there that I had to learn to see. As I have seen watching my young grandsons with their newborn sisters, gentleness is something that has to be learned. And it is only possible to learn gentleness when we know that we are dearly loved. Paul told the followers at Colossi that we need to clothe ourselves with gentleness. When we consciously put on love like we put on clothing then we can be learn to be gentle, forgive each other, and seek to love as Christ as loved us.
Prayer Gentle and Loving Father Remind us of how much we are loved. Teach us to forgive as we have been forgiven. Bind us together with your love. Amen For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? In the past few days the conditions have been perfect for beautiful sunsets. The sun has reflected off the clouds in such a way as to color almost the whole sky. While we can compare sunsets for their beauty, there is nothing that can compare to our awesome God. May beautiful sunsets remind us of the beauty and greatness of our God.
Prayer Great God Thank you for skies filled with beautiful colors that remind us of your greatness. We worship you, Lord over all things. Amen Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. At first glance, it looks like one single, little flower working hard to push through the rocks. But when you look closer you see that it is more than just a single flower but a plant of many parts, each part serving its own function. Together each part not only helps the plant survive but reproduce and make many more plants, some in the same place and some carried away by water, wind, and creatures to grow in a new place. Christ meant for the church to be like this. We all have different gifts and when we use them to support and help each other then we grow together as a community and can spread the love of Christ both near and far.
Prayer Lord Jesus, Help us to see the value in each person. Help us to help each other find the purpose that you have for us so that together we can share the love that you so richly lavished on us. Amen |
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Soli Deo Gloria,
1 Corinthians 10:31
© 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Karen Milligan
1 Corinthians 10:31
© 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Karen Milligan