# The soil of your soul Day 4 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer *Father, Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65 #### O God of Our Salvation To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. A Song. *65 Praise is due to you,[a] O God, in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed.* *2 O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.3 When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!* *5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation,* *the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; 6 the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might; 7 who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, 8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.* *9 You visit the earth and water it;[b]you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water;you provide their grain,for so you have prepared it.10 You water its furrows abundantly,settling its ridges,softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.11 You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,the hills gird themselves with joy,13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain,they shout and sing together for joy.* #### Scripture for the Day: Matthew 13:24-30 #### The Parable of the Weeds *24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds[a] among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants[b] of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”* #### Reading for Reflection: *I find you there in all these things I care for like a brother. A seed, you nestle in the smallest of them,and in the huge ones spread yourself hugely. Such is the amazing play of powers: they give themselves so willingly, swelling in the roots, thinning as the trunks rise, and in the high leaves, resurrection.(Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul *You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness* *You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)* *I was a hungry child, a dried up river.* *I was a burned out forest* *And no one could do anything for me* *But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed* *And to my blackened branches* *You brought springtime green and a new life* *And nothing is impossible for you* ### Closing Prayer: *Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)*