The Upper Room Daily Reflections "Praying with Our Bodies" in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Tuesday, 25 April 2017

The Upper Room Daily Reflections "Praying with Our Bodies" in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Today’s Reflection

JUST AS WE ARE ABLE to reach out to God with our hearts and minds …, we are able to reach out to God with and through our bodies. For it is through our bodies that we see and experience beauty, love, joy, and peace. It is through our bodies that we know the ecstasy of the divine fire burning in our hearts as we enter more deeply into prayer. It is through our bodies that we meet the One who came in a body to dwell among us, heal us, and help us to know God. – Daniel Wolpert, Creating a Life with God
From pages 116-117 of Creating a Life with God: The Call of Ancient Prayer Practices by Daniel Wolpert. Copyright © 2003 by Daniel Wolpert. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
How do you experience God with and through your body?
Today’s Scripture
So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.[John 2:41, NRSV]
This Week: pray for people those who are experiencing divorce.
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The Upper Room Daily Reflections "Spiritual Hunger" in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Monday, 24 April 2017
Today’s Reflection

PEOPLE TODAY HUNGER for spiritual experience, for an encounter with the living God. Millennials (the increasing majority of people who do not subscribe to Enlightenment prejudice against spiritual experience) long for spiritual experience through symbols, metaphors, stories, art, music, and practices of prayer that help us listen deeply to God’s voice. Today offers a time of unprecedented opportunity for us … to reconnect with our own heritage of Christian mysticism, to reclaim the central importance of prayer and spiritual experience to the Christian life.
In our own forgotten and rejected DNA we have what it will take to reconnect us with the apostolic power of God in mission. It is time for a new generation of leaders to come forth, new John Wesleys and Phoebe Palmers, who are filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit and who, like Paul, surrender their own traditions to the greater tradition of God making all things new.–God Unbound
From pages 39-40 of God Unbound: Wisdom from the Galatians for the Anxious Church by Elaine A. Heath. Copyright © 2016 by Elaine A. Heath. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
Where do you see evidence of spiritual hunger?
Today’s Scripture
Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.[John 20:29, NRSV]
This Week: pray for people those who are experiencing divorce. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section.
Did You Know?
In need of prayer? The Upper Room Living Prayer Center is a 7-day-a-week intercessory prayer ministry staffed by trained volunteers. Call 1-800-251-2468 or visit The Living Prayer Center website.
This week we remember: Mark the Evangelist (April 25).
Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
The Upper Room Ministries
®. Copyright © 2017
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Nashville, Tennessee 37203-0004, United States
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