receiving on wilderness

God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a God of compassion and love. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we’ve known Your love, and experienced Your care and provision. Repeatedly You’ve answered our ...

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with o...

One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred...

Gentle God, we have wandered away from you, from your love, and from what gives you deepest delight in our lives, so our lives become hollow and hungry, lost and lonely. We return to you. Rece...

The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.

Leader: God of love, when we wander away it is your grace that calls us back to you. All: You receive us with mercy, and we give thanks. Loving Christ, when we are lost and lonely in a far l...

The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

Still our minds, God, and calm our hearts, so that we may hear the Word that comes from you that leads us in life, that protects us in struggle, that guides us in doing your will, that strengthens us ...

Jesus, the Promised Shepherd,  you who are always making a way  for your people to rest  when other shepherds demand  performance and success:  reveal the green pastures  where we can heal...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

Gracious God, you have called us to be light in a dark world, and we have remained hidden. Thinking of ourselves first, we have withheld courage and compassion. Merciful God, hear our confessions and ...

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

Holy Spirit, pour out upon us wisdom and understanding, that, being taught by you in Holy Scripture, our hearts and minds may be opened to receive all that leads to life and holiness. Through Jesus Ch...

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Gracious God, too often we believe that our hard work should earn us comfort, conveniences, and control. Too often, we rely on our own abilities to craft and maintain a life independent from You. Forg...

One evening I was taking a stretch break from study, walking out into the night. Soon I began speaking prayers of complaint . . . a little like the lament psalms in the Bible. I wasn’t angry, really, ...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away. Rather than offering mercy, we...

All-gracious God, you promise that your light drowns out darkness, yet the darkness is so persistent. We cannot see in front of us, so we look to our own knowledge and ways. Forgive us for turning to ...

God of Wonder and Majesty–You are the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End... our past, present and future. You’ve come in the past ...You’re here with us now ...and You’ll come again in power and g...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

Our God, we have been slow to stand and slow to act. We have been unmoved in the face of wrongs. Rather than welcoming others, we have put up walls. We have served this god of self-preservation. But y...

God’s very nature is to be in dialogue: [the Trinity] in an eternal movement or flow of openness and receiving, a total giving and accepting, spilling over into creation and calling creation back into...

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

Within thy circling power I stand; On every side I find thy hand; Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God. …O may these thoughts possess my breast, Where'er I rove...

Gracious God, you are the author of life and giver of all good things. Yet we have worked against your goodness, passing people by, and ignoring their needs. Father, forgive us for walking away from p...

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” – Jo...

Lord—There’s nothing You call us to do that you don’t equip us to do. You ask us to release those we care about to You–then You furnish the faith to give them to You who have the love and power to mak...

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.