Today’s Reflection
I LOVE REMBRANDT’S painting The Return of the Prodigal Son. The father holds his child, touches his child, and says, “You are my beloved. I’m not going to ask you any questions. Wherever you have gone, whatever you have done, and whatever people say about you, you’re my beloved. I hold you safe in my embrace. You can come home to me whose name is Compassionate, whose name is Love.”
If we keep that in mind, we can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without losing our identity, because our identity is that we are the beloved. Long before our father and mother, our brothers and sisters, our teachers, our church, or anyone else touched us in a loving or a wounding way—long before we were rejected by some person or praised by somebody else—that voice was there. “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). That love was there before we were born and will be there after we die.
– Henri J. M. Nouwen with John S. Mogabgab, Series Editor
A Spirituality of Living
“From pages 25-26 of A Spirituality of Living by
Henri J. M. Nouwen with John S. Mogabgab, Series Editor. Copyright
© 2011 The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust. All rights reserved. Used
by permission of Upper Room Books.” http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
What does it mean to have your identity based on God’s love for you? Share your thoughts.
Today’s Scripture
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:18-19, NRSV
This Week: pray for the mind of Christ. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section.
Did You Know?
In need of prayer? The Upper Room Living Prayer Center is a 7-day-a-week intercessory prayer ministry staffed by trained volunteers. Call 1-800-251-2468 or visit The Living Prayer Center website.
This week we remember: Mary Magdalene (July 22).
Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
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5 Comments
Thank you God for your amazing love that covers all our success, failures and everything else.
Blessings
It’s quite overwhelming to imagine the love God has for us and what that love can do. The story of the prodigal son puts it in terms that are easier to understand. Being grounded in God’s love is a very solid way to live, we are on “solid rock” not “sinking sand”. Thank You, Lord.
Thankful that there is progress on many fronts, with different people, situations, and activities. Need to find a way to restore the forwarding of comments as I feel a loss without them. At best I can review the previous days’s posts and then respond.
Prayers for the well being, health, safety, security, and spiritual growth of the UR family.
Last week we had a reflection from a book about forgiving one’s family. I immediately bought this book. So that explains my need to dwell on God’s love for me.
Marcy, Chai and Tazzie are sleeping on their eectric blanket. Chai is in it and Tazzie is on top of the fleece blanket which is on top of the electric blanket. They love to sleep curled up together and play fight with one another often. Tazzie spent some time on my lap this morning.
Prayers that Marcy is able to go to her doctor appointment today.
Prayers for Robert, Erich and Anneliese. Prayers for Robert and his computer issues. I do not understand, do you mean you cannot see what others post here?
Prayers for Mary and her new job and the culture and language difficulties. I pray that these issues can be resolved in a positive manner. Prayers for Mary’s parents.
My surgery is around eight Monday morning as of now.
Prayers for Jill and her family, Lou and her family, Andrea and her family, Betsy and her family, Gail and her family, Connie and her family, and Ken.
Prayers and blessings to all who stumble upon this warm and welcoming group
I am so thankful for the love of God. He has given me everything that I love. I will praise Him with my last breath.
Will be praying for Julie this weekend and Monday. Here is a story of my last cat……I would say “I will put my “pawsie” on my face, now you put your “pawsie” on my face (and touch my cheek)”. Oh, how she hated it, but finally put her paw on my cheek….not often, though!
Have a blessed weekend, friends.
My kitty actually will put his paw on my face when he is sitting on my lap. He wiil gaze into my eyes and then reach up and pat my cheeck.
Also, Robert, if you like the book you are reading you may like Pearl Buck’s trilogy. She won a noble prize for ” The Good Earth.” The other books in the trilogy are “Sons” and “A House Divided.” I just finished them recently and they are amazing. They give an accurate account of life in China around the turn of the past century ( late 1800s to early 1900s). Be warned, they are quite the undertaking with over 1500 pages total but well worth the time.
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