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New every morning is your love, great God of light, and all day long you are working for good in the world. Stir up in us desire to serve you, to live peacefully with our neighbors and all your creation, and to devote each day to your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

"A Liturgy for Morning Prayer," Upper Room Worshipbook

Used by permission from the Book of Common Worship, © 2018 Westminster John Knox Press. All rights reserved. This prayer appears in “A Liturgy for Morning Prayer” in Upper Room Worshipbook.

Today's Reflection

WE LIVE BETWEEN the stories of the Garden and the Exile. The tension between these stories sends us on our journey of spiritual exploration. If we refuse to break the tension and don’t give ourselves over to either the fear of the prospect of death or the fantasy of the utopian dream of returning to the garden, then we are ready to begin our voyage of discovery. When we resist minimizing God’s story to a story of fear or to a story of fantasy, we can embark on the surprising journey beyond fear and fantasy.

—Michael E. Williams, Spoken into Being: Divine Encounters Through Story (Upper Room Books, 2017)

Today's Question

What is the story of your journey with God?  

Today's Scripture

“For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
—Jeremiah 29:10-11 (NRSV)

Prayer for the Week

I love to tell the story
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest.

From "I Love to Tell the Story" by
Katherine Hankey, The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 156

Submit your prayer to The Upper Room or share it in the comment section.

Something More

During Advent we think about a wondrous mystery: that God chose to become human and lived among us. Rediscover The Wondrous Mystery this Advent.

Lectionary Readings

(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

Looking for lectionary-based resources? Learn more about The Upper Room Disciplines.

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