Coffee and Devotions - Wonder in Faith скачать в хорошем качестве

Coffee and Devotions - Wonder in Faith

Morning Friends I am outside of The By and By in Staunton, Virginia, http://www.thebyandby.us/. Stop by and enjoy your favorite brew of coffee from 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on most days of the week. As Labor Day weekend approaches, we are changing from the season of summer to fall. The changes of season give a good opportunity to enter new practices in our faith. I would like to invite you to try the faithful practice of letting your mind wonder with scripture and prayer in the background during your day. Eugene Peterson was a Presbyterian pastor and author of many spiritual books along with translating scripture into what we know as the Message Bible. Eugene shares in one of his books about a Sabbath practice. My wife joins me in observing the day. We make a lunch, put it in a daypack, take our binoculars, and drive anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour away, to a trailhead along a river or into the mountains. Before we begin our hike my wife reads a psalm and prays. After that prayer there is no more talking – we enter into a silence that will continue for the next two or three ours, until we stop for lunch. We walk leisurely, emptying ourselves, opening ourselves to what is there: fern shapes, flower fragrance, birdsong, granite outcropping, oaks and sycamores, rain, snow, sleet, wind… When the sun or our stomachs tell us it is lunchtime, we break the silence with a prayer of blessing for the sandwiches and fruit, the river and the forest. We are free to talk now, sharing bird sightings, thoughts, observations, ideas – however much or little we are inclined. (Working the Angles, page 81) My prayer for you this week is to allow your mind to wonder in faith with scripture and prayer in the background. I will leave you with a few words from Psalm 90 in the message version of Scripture; God, it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—you are God. Take care and have a blessed week.