# The soil of your soul Day 7 > 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: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 #### Divisions in the Church *3 But I, brothers,[a] could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?* *5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.* #### Reading for Reflection: *A seed only flourishes by staying in the ground in which it is sown. When you keep digging the seed up to check whether it is growing, it will never bear fruit. Think about yourself as a little seed planted in rich soil. All you have to do is stay there and trust that the soil contains everything you need to grow. This growth takes place even when you do not feel it. Be quiet, acknowledge your powerlessness, and have faith that one day you will know how much you have received. (The Inner Voice of Love by Henri J. M. Nouwen)* #### 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)*)