September 5

Today’s devotions (Psalm 43 & 61; Ezekiel 2:1-3:3; Luke 8:26-39; Revelation 15:1-8) were especially helpful for me. You see over the summer, I began putting a stronger emphasis on the role of centering prayer in my spiritual life. For those of you unfamiliar with centering prayer, centering prayer is a spiritual practice that emphasizes a time of mediation whereby your focus is on listening to/for God; this is different than traditional intercessory prayer where the focus is on talking to God. It is recommended that the practitioner of centering prayer find a focusing word that is used to draw your thoughts back to God when your mind begins to wander. In my time of prayer, I adapted this suggestion slightly by incorporating a second centering word as well. I then connected these two centering words to my breathing and used them as an invitation to prayer. As I head into the time of centering prayer, I inhale to the word “hope”. I then exhale to the word “fear”. I found in my time of discernment that fear was the greatest inhibitor in my ministry (hence the reason I exhale to it), and hope is the word that for me best captured my experience of new life/resurrection. As a result, I was thrilled to see that in today’s readings, hope and fear both appeared. Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 8:26-39) told the story of Jesus sending out the legion of demons from the possessed man into the neighboring herd of swine. The story reminded me of an important lesson concerning ministry. Conventional wisdom would say that people would eagerly/excitedly receive a moment of transformation such as the moment when the demons fled the possessed man. And yet what was the reaction of the community? “Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear” (Luke 8:37). The Gospel lesson was an important reminder that one cannot evaluate the success of a ministry simply by the people’s response because often transformative moments initially lead not to hope but fear, as one is drawn from the comfortable life we know (even if that life is plagued with our own version of demons) to a liberated new life. So where was the hope I so desperately need to draw in? I found it in the 43rd Psalm that read (in “The Message”): “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise [God], my Savior, and my God”. It reminds me that my hope isn’t in some superficial exterior (people’s rewards or praise), but rather in the One in whom my life and ministry is grounded. [Inhale] Hope; [Exhale] Fear… [Inhale] Hope; [Exhale] Fear… [Inhale] Hope; [Exhale] Fear… Til next time… (PS: If you would like a copy of the daily lectionary readings I used, just email me at pastor@mtviewchurch.com and I would be happy to email you a copy right away).