Upper Room Daily Reflections ~ ”Connecting With God” ~ Saturday, 26 October 2013

Upper Room Daily Reflections ~ ”Connecting With God” ~ Saturday, 26 October 2013

Today’s Reflections:

THE FOCUS OF spiritual guidance is on a person’s relationship with God and the responses that the relationship calls forth. Since we are whole people and cannot separate our inner and outer lives, conversations in spiritual guidance may range over many topics – our families of origin, our ethnic or cultural roots, troubles with a spouse or children, the meaning of our work, the moral stands we take, the way we allocate our resources, the manner in which we schedule our time, the content and methods of our prayer, the spiritual disciplines we undertake, or the devotional exercises in which we engage. Any facet of life may come into consideration. But in spiritual guidance it will be considered in relation to the discerned movement of the spirit.

“How is God connected to this matter?” Here lies the root issue of spiritual guidance. When we pay attention in an open and discerning way, the God-connection in every aspect of our lives can become clear.(Wendy M. Wright  ~ Exploring Spiritual Guidance Participant’s Book)

From page 22 of Exploring Spiritual Guidance Participant’s Book” by Wendy M. Wright, volume 5 in Companions in Christ series. Copyright © 2006 by Upper Room Books. All rights reserved. Used by permission. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.

Today’s Question:

Ask yourself throughout the day, “How is God connected with this matter?”

Today’s Scripture:

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt…(Luke 18:9, NRSV)

This Week: pray for people in your community.

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How do you empower your congregation to share the Good News with others? Join The Upper Room Evangelism Partnership. Increase your church’s standing order for The Upper Room by any amount and we will provide you with free adult education materials to help prepare members to share the Good News with others. Register here.

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This week we remember: 

Howard Thurman (October 22)

Howard Thurman (1900-81), African-American preacher and mystic. A leading voice for racial justice, Thurman struggled against prejudice all his life but refused to become bitter. He enrolled in Morehouse College, became active in the YMCA, and was exposed to a brilliant sampling of African- American leaders: Franklin Frazier, Benjamin Mays, and John Hope. His acceptance at Rochester Theological School was a special distinction since the school accepted only two black applicants in any given year. Rochester was his first experience in the white world and a difficult one. After seminary he became the pastor of a Baptist church in Oberlin, Ohio, and began graduate work at the Oberlin School of Theology. He was appointed by both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges to teach religion and be chaplain. A lecture series on the spiritual insights of the African-American spiritual became his book Deep River.

In 1935 Thurman was invited by the YMCA and YWCA to chair a delegation of African-Americans on a pilgrimage of friendship to India, Burma, and Ceylon. He accepted, though he was reluctant to be an apologist for segregated American Christianity. He became convinced of the distinction between the religion of Jesus and religion about Jesus. In India he met Gandhi and was quickly persuaded to imitate Gandhi's nonviolence. In 1948 he went to San Francisco, where he founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples. His dreams for a congregation that was both racially integrated and ecumenical came true. After nine years he became dean of the chapel and professor of spiritual disciplines at Boston University. His ministry at the university and his preaching trips around the world had a wide influence.

Among Thurman's many books are The Negro Speaks of Life and Death,The Centering Moment,Jesus and the Disinherited, Meditations of the Heart, Disciplines of the Spirit, and his autobiography, With Head and Heart.

If Howard Thurman had taken the Spiritual Types Test he probably would have been a Mystic. Thurman is remembered on October 22.

[Excerpted with permission from the entry on Howard Thurman by Howard L. Rice, from The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian Spiritual Formation edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe. Copyright © 2003 by Upper Room Books®. All rights reserved.]

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Lectionary Readings:

(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

Joel 2:23 “Be glad then, you children of Zion,

and rejoice in the LORD, your God;

for he gives you the former rain in just measure,

and he causes the rain to come down for you,

the former rain and the latter rain,

as before.

24 The threshing floors will be full of wheat,

and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar,

my great army, which I sent among you.

26 You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied,

and will praise the name of the LORD, your God,

who has dealt wondrously with you;

and my people will never again be disappointed.

27 You will know that I am among Israel,

and that I am the LORD, your God, and there is no one else;

and my people will never again be disappointed.

28 “It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.

Your old men will dream dreams.

Your young men will see visions.

29 And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days,

I will pour out my Spirit.

30 I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:

blood, fire, and pillars of smoke.

31 The sun will be turned into darkness,

and the moon into blood,

before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

32 It will happen that whoever will call on the LORD’s name shall be saved;

for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape,

as the LORD has said,

and among the remnant, those whom the LORD calls.(Messianic WEB)

Psalm 65:For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. A song.

1 Praise waits for you, God, in Zion.

To you shall vows be performed.

2 You who hear prayer,

to you all men will come.

3 Sins overwhelmed me,

but you atoned for our transgressions.

4 Blessed is one whom you choose, and cause to come near,

that he may live in your courts.

We will be filled with the goodness of your house,

your holy temple.

5 By awesome deeds of righteousness, you answer us,

God of our salvation.

You who are the hope of all the ends of the earth,

of those who are far away on the sea;

6 Who by his power forms the mountains,

having armed yourself with strength;

7 who stills the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

and the turmoil of the nations.

8 They also who dwell in faraway places are afraid at your wonders.

You call the morning’s dawn and the evening with songs of joy.

9 You visit the earth, and water it.

You greatly enrich it.

The river of God is full of water.

You provide them grain, for so you have ordained it.

10 You drench its furrows.

You level its ridges.

You soften it with showers.

You bless it with a crop.

11 You crown the year with your bounty.

Your carts overflow with abundance.

12 The wilderness grasslands overflow.

The hills are clothed with gladness.

13 The pastures are covered with flocks.

The valleys also are clothed with grain.

They shout for joy!

They also sing.(Messianic WEB)

2 Timothy 4:6 For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. 8 From now on, there is stored up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day; and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved his appearing.16 At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. 18 And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom; to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.(Messianic WEB)

Luke 18:9 He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others. 10  “Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. 11  The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12  I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13  But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”(Messianic WEB)

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