Midweek Mindfulness ~ November 1st 2023

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Let us take a moment to sit and rest with Jesus, the spring of living water
We offer you a song and a simple prayer

A Song

A Prayer

Take a moment to sit with Jesus in silence

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When you're ready, let's pray the following prayer with Him
My voice is still recovering from laryngitis, so no recording this week.
Perhaps there is someone else in your home you could pray with?

Today we meditate on Matthew 22:34-46

The Greatest Invitation

You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and first commandment.
And a second is like it:
You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets.

How beautifully simple it is.
For God to be searching
for hearts, souls, and minds
so in love with Him
that this love spills over
onto everyone we meet.
For Jesus to trade
a stilted religious trap
for a relational invitation.
To place the heart of the matter
not in the halls of the learned,
but in the everyday call of the Shema,
spoken by all God's children.
To take our abstract religious aspirations
out of the temple and ground them
in the warm heartbeats
of our neighbourhoods.
Jesus, You are so beautiful.

We offer our hearts, Father.
Lead us into an everyday devotion
of thoughts and emotion,
of choices and wills,
that our guiding desires
would blossom with love for You.

We offer our whole beings, Father.
Show us how to offer more to You.
By Your gentle voice and hands,
help us to open our lives to You,
that nothing would stay in darkness.
Shine on our whole selves, Holy Spirit.

We offer our minds, Father.
May every thought we think
be rooted in the eternal life
of your beautiful Son,
that the words and actions
blossoming from them
would bear Your fruit.

All we are
and all we have
are gifts given to us by You.
These precious lives,
like leaves on the Tree,
are made alive by You
to hold and be turned
by Your autumn Light
to bursts of glory gold,
that passersby might stop and see
the Gardener through us.

Help us to love You
by loving others today, Father.