# Time Day 7 > 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: Hebrews 3:7-19 #### A Rest for the People of God #### 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, *“Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath,‘They shall not enter my rest.’”* *12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”* *16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.* #### Reading for Reflection: *When I imagine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture my room and desk tidy, everything in its place. I myself am moving gracefully and graciously from one task to the next with precision, on schedule but with no strain or pressure. The schedule and the tasks are perfectly synchronized. It could all be so simple, I say to myself, if everything were only in its place.* ​ *But it isn’t. It’s complicated. It’s complicated because people don’t stay in place. They aren’t predictable, they foul up my schedule, they interfere with my agenda, they make demands I hadn’t programmed. It’s complicated because there is too much to do, too many tasks, too many needs, too much going on. I can’t keep up with it all; I’m always at least a step or two behind. I can’t do everything that needs to be done; I feel burdened, sometimes even guilty, for being so limited. And I think maybe I’m doing it wrong, and if I could just figure out how to do it right I’d be able to meet everyone’s needs. It’s complicated because there’s never enough time. In my anxiety to conquer time by controlling its dispensation, I feel myself victimized by it. I am unable to find time, take time, get time: all control words.* ​ *Mostly what I find is frustration. My life is out of control. I feel a need to be in control of my life and all the factors, situations, and people that complicate it. I set myself over-against them and need to dominate them, to subject them to my agenda, fit them into my program. I do have an agenda, and I don’t want it interrupted. I set up my day and I offer it to God.* ​ *But there’s something wrong in the picture. When I imagine—or when I experience—the simple way, everything moves in a rhythm. There is an Agenda, and I’m in tune with it, but it’s not my creation. I don’t need to worry about controlling; I don’t need to be anxious that it won’t all work out. I’m not in command and don’t need to be…. The interruptions are as integral to the scene as anything I had planned. I only receive the day and the program that comes to me during the day from God. And that’s what makes the difference. (Reflections on Simplicity by Elaine M. Prevallet)* #### 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)*