Day By Day #37

Day by Day #37

MORNING/MIDDAY PRAYER

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:26–28

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Devotional

At his final meal with the disciples, Jesus broke bread as a symbol of how he was making himself bread, sacrificing his very life for love. Henri Nouwen summarizes the process of how we too can love—and become bread for the world—by expounding on the four things Jesus did when he broke bread. The bread was taken, blessed, broken, and given:

I must tell you that these four words have become the most important words of my life. . . . The first step in the spiritual life is to acknowledge with our whole being that we already have been taken, or chosen. . . . When I write you that, I mean that we have been seen by God from all eternity and seen as unique, special, precious beings. . . .

[Then] as the beloved children of God, we are blessed. For me personally, prayer becomes more and more a way to listen to the blessing. . . .

Broken. The way I am broken tells you something about me. The way you are broken tells me something about you. Our brokenness is as unique as our chosenness and our blessedness. . . .

We are chosen, blessed, and broken so as to be given. In the giving it becomes clear that we are chosen, blessed and broken not simply for our own sakes, but so that all we live finds its final significance in its being lived for others.^a (emphasis added)

Jesus took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread of his life to the disciples, and the world. In the same way, he invites us to become bread so we too can love those around us.

Question to Consider

How do you respond to the truth that your life is taken, blessed, broken, and given? Which of these four words speaks most to you today?

Prayer

Father, I don’t mind being blessed, but it isn’t always easy for me to allow myself to be taken, broken, and given. But I do want to grow in love, and I offer myself to you that I may be given, by you, as a gift to others this day. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

MIDDAY/EVENING PRAYER

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Mark 7:1–2, 14–15, 20–23

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. . . .

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” . . .

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Devotional

The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were deeply concerned with external indicators of holiness, such as observing strict rules about everything from eating food with properly washed hands to proper observance of Sabbath. Jesus, in contrast, was deeply concerned about internal indicators of holiness, specifically the human heart. He knew that resolutions of “I shall be good” were not enough. We each need the direct intervention of God to give us a new heart, a new nature, and a new Spirit. But conversion is not a onetime spiritual event. God intends that every day be a fresh beginning in which we humbly invite the wind of the Holy Spirit to form us more deeply into people who love him and others like he does.

C. S. Lewis captures this need for ongoing transformation in his story of Eustace, a young boy, who becomes a big, ugly dragon as a consequence of being selfish, stubborn, and unbelieving. After indulging his dragon self to the full, he is hurting and wants nothing more than to go back to being a young boy again. But he can’t do it himself.

Eventually, the great lion Aslan (representing Jesus) appears to him and leads him to a beautiful well to bathe. But since he is a dragon, he can’t enter the well. When Aslan tells him to undress, Eustace peels off a layer of dragon skin by himself, dropping it to the ground. He feels better, but as he moves toward the pool, he realizes there is yet another hard, rough, scaly layer still on him. Frustrated, in pain, and longing to step into that beautiful bath, he asks himself, “How many skins do I have to take off?”

After three layers, Eustace despairs and gives up. Aslan then says, “You will have to let me undress you.” Here is how Eustace later describes to his companions what happened next:

I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. . . .

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me . . . and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me [with his paws] . . . in new clothes.^b

Gritty self-effort can only take us so far in the transformation process. We each carry deep defects of character that will be changed only when we surrender to God’s divine surgery.

Question to Consider

What unhealthy pattern or “dragon skin” do you most desire for God to free you from right now?

Prayer

Lord, there are unhealthy relational patterns and character defects hidden deep within me. I know I cannot change myself; that is your work. But I know I have to want it and to surrender myself to it. I open the door of my heart to you, inviting you to remove all that hinders me from being a soft, approachable, and loving person. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

^a Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 49, 53, 67, 75, 86–87, 105, 112.

^b C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: Collier, 1970), 90–91.