# Becoming day 4 > 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: Isaiah 29:13-16 *13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me,* *and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”* *15 Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” 16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?* #### Reading for Reflection: *Eustace was silent for so long that Edmund thought he was fainting; but at last he said’ “It’s all right now. Could we go and talk somewhere? I don’t want to meet the others just yet.”* *“Yes, rather, anywhere you like,” said Edmund. “We can go and sit on the rocks over there. I say, I am glad to see you—er—looking yourself again. You must have had a pretty beastly time.”* *They went to the rocks and sat down looking out across the bay while the sky got paler and paler and the stars disappeared except for one bright one low down and near the horizon.* *“I won’t tell you how I became a—a dragon till I can tell the others and get it all over,” said Eustace. “By the way, I didn’t even know it was a dragon till I heard you all using the word when I turned up here the other morning. I want to tell you how I stopped being one.”* *“Fire ahead,” said Edmund.* *“Well, last night I was more miserable than ever. And that beastly arm-ring was hurting like anything—“* *“Is that all right now?”* *Eustace laughed—a different laugh from any Edmund had heard him give before—and slipped the bracelet easily off his arm. “There it is,” he said, “and anyone who likes can have it as far as I’m concerned. Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then—but, mind you, it may have been all a dream. I don’t know.”* *“Go on,” said Edmund, with considerable patience.* *“Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn’t that kind of fear. I wasn’t afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it—if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it.”* *“You mean it spoke?”* *“I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I don’t think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I’d have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I’d never seen before and on top of this mountain there was a garden—trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.* *“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was bigger than most wells—like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.* *“I was going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.* *“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.* *“Well exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.* *“Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty near desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.* *“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked a scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”* *“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.* *“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.* *“After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me—“* *“Dressed you. With his paws?”* *“Well I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”* *“No, it wasn’t a dream,” said Edmund.* *“Why not?”* *“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been—well, un-dragoned, for another.”* *“What do you think it was then?” asked Eustace.* *“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.* *(Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis)* #### 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)*