# Becoming day 2 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *God of our creation and re-creation, you who are constantly at work to shape me in the wholeness of Christ, you know the hardness of the structures of my being that resist your shaping touch. You know the deep inner rigidities of my being that reject your changing grace. By your grace soften my hardness and rigidity; help me to become pliable in your hands. Even as I pray this, may there be a melting of my innate resistance to your transforming love. Amen. (Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 37 #### He Will Not Forsake His Saints [a] Of David. *37 Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!2 For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.[b]4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.* *5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.9 For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.* *10 In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.11 But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.12 The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him,13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.* *14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright;15 their sword shall enter their own heart,and their bows shall be broken.16 Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. 17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.* *18 The Lord knows the days of the blameless,and their heritage will remain forever; 19 they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance.20 But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.* *21 The wicked borrows but does not pay back,but the righteous is generous and gives; 22 for those blessed by the Lord[c] shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. 23 The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; 24 though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,for the Lord upholds his hand.* *25 I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. 26 He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing.27 Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever. 28 For the Lord loves justice;he will not forsake his saints.They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.* *29 The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.* *30 The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice.31 The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.32 The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death.33 The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.34 Wait for the Lord and keep his way,and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off.35 I have seen a wicked, ruthless man,spreading himself like a green laurel tree.[d]36 But he passed away,[e] and behold, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found.* *37 Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace.38 But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.39 The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.40 The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,because they take refuge in him.* #### Scripture for the Day: Galatians 5:16-26 #### Keep in Step with the Spirit *16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[a] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.* *25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.* #### Reading for Reflection: *When we are younger and are wrestling with choices about the future, we are very often asked, and ask ourselves: “What are you going to do when you grow up?” It is the wrong question. What we are going to do is not who we are.* *When it was time for me to make choices, I should have been wrestling with another question. I should have been asking, “Who am I going to be when I grow up?” What I then went on to do with that should have been a reflection of who I was to be, a reflection of the word that was whispered into me. I should have been looking for work to do that would sustain and nurture who I am (who I be, if you will). I was then, and am still, the only person on earthy who has any clue at all what was whispered into me in the depths of my mother’s womb. Everyone else is just guessing, and their guesses are a lot less well informed than mine. God whispered the word Robert into me, and no one else. If I can not hear that word, no one can. If I do not hear that word, no one will. If I do hear it and fail to act upon it, no one will be the word called Robert that God spoke.* *Rabbi Zusya, one of the great wisdom teachers of the Hebrew tradition, once said, “In the world to come I shall not be asked: Why were you not Moses? I shall be asked: Why were you not Zusya?”* *The will of the One who sent us is that we be the one who was sent. What we do is meant to be lived out of the context of discovering and becoming the person we are.* *If enough of us were to ungarble our words, perhaps God’s story might be more clearly heard and understood. Perhaps the song that God sings into the wind that whispers all around us in the trees would be on more lips and taught more children. My friend Russell Montfort once remarked that he suspects that “we die with half our music left in us.” Maybe we do not know the words to our own song.* *And it is not just our own little melody that suffers; the whole chorus is not as good. If you leave out enough of the words, even the Song of the whole universe will sound funny.* *The Song needs my word. It is not the same song without it. And I am the only one who has ever heard it, the only one who can ever listen to its echo deep inside and know whether or not the life that I am living—what I am doing with my hours and days and work and other selves to love—rhymes with it, and sings it clearly at all. (Between the Dreaming and the Coming True by Robert Benson)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: May the Mind of Christ, My Savior *May the mind of Christ, my Savior,* *Live in me from day to day,* *By His love and power controlling* *All I do and say.* *May the Word of God dwell richly* *In my heart from hour to hour,* *So that all may see I triumph* *Only through His power.* *May the peace of God, my Father,* *Rule my life in everything.* *That I may be calm to comfort* *Sick and sorrowing.* *May the love of Jesus fill me,* *As the waters fill the sea;* *Him exalting, self-abasing* *This is victory.* ### Closing Prayer: *Father, forgive us when we think that life is more about what we are doing than about who we are becoming. Help us to remember that more than anything else you want our hearts. Allow us to give them to you fully, that we might receive yours in return; changing us more into the likeness your Son Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen. (JLB)*