# Time Day 4 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *Lord, Help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it. Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment. Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities. In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 90 #### Book Four #### From Everlasting to Everlasting #### A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. *90 Lord, you have been our dwelling place[a] in all generations.* *2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”[b] 4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.* *5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.7 For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.* *9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;* *yet their span[c] is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. 11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? 12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.* *13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.17 Let the favor[d] of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!* #### Scripture for the Day: Psalm 103:13-19 #### The Ministry of Reconciliation *11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.* *16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling[b] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.* *6 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,* *“In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”* *Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.* #### Reading for Reflection: **Hope that grows out of trust puts us in a different relationship to the hours and days of our lives. We are constantly tempted to look at time as chronology, as chronos, as a series of disconnected incidents and accidents. This one way we think we can manage time or subdue tasks. Or a way that we feel the victims of our schedules. For this approach also means that time becomes burdensome. We divide our time into minutes and hours and weeks and let its compartments dominate us.* *As still not completely converted people we immerse ourselves in clock time. Time becomes a means to an end, not moments in which to enjoy God or pay attention to others. And we end up believing that the real thing is always still to come. Time for celebrating or praying or dreaming gets squeezed out. No wonder we get fatigued and deflated! No wonder we sometimes feel helpless or impoverished in our experience of time.* *But the gospel speaks of “full” time. What we are seeking is already here. The contemplative Thomas Merton once wrote, “The Bible is concerned with time’s fullness, the time for an event to happen, the time for an emotion to be felt, the time for a harvest or for the celebration of a harvest” (The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton). We begin to see history not as a collection of events interrupting what we “must” get done. We see time in light of faith in the God of history. We see how the events of this year are not just a series of incidents and accidents, happy or unhappy, but the molding hands of God, who wants us to grow and mature.* *Time has to be converted, then, from chronos, mere chronological time, to kairos, a New Testament Greek word that has to do with opportunity, with moments that seems ripe for their intended purpose. Then, even while life continues to seem harried, while it continues to have hard moments, we say, “Something good is happening amid all this.” We get glimpses of how God might be working out his purposes in our days. Time becomes not just something to get through or manipulate or manage, but the arena of God’s work with us. Whatever happens—good things or bad, pleasant or problematic—we look and ask, “What might God be doing here?” We see the events of the day as continuing occasions to change the heart. Time points to Another and begins to speak to us of God. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J. M. Nouwen)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Come, Now is the Time to Worship *Come, now is the time to worship* *Come, now is the time to give your heart* *Come, just as you are to worship* *Come, just as you are before your God* *Come* *One day every tongue will confess you are God* *One day every knee will bow* *Still the greatest treasure remains for those* *Who gladly choose you now* #### Closing Prayer: ​ *O Christ, when I look at you I see that you were never in a hurry, never ran, but always had time for the pressing necessities of the day. Give me that disciplined, poised life with time always for the thing that matters. For then I would be a disciplined person. Amen. (The Way by E. Stanley Jones)*