Sitting With Jesus - Ash Wednesday Prayer
Friends –
The vision of Redeemer Anglican Church is that we would be a people who Participate with Christ in the Redemption of All Things. That ‘all things’ includes ourselves… In Hebrews 10:14, the writer states that God has perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified. This means that though we have already been redeemed, we still await the fullness of our redemption – the completeness of Christ’s work in us. And throughout the scriptures, we’re called to participate in that work by the way that we live.
One of the ways we participate in the Lord’s redemptive work in our lives is by is by Sitting with Jesus in prayer. So, each week, we are going to make an effort to help you – even for a moment – sit with Jesus and saturate yourself in prayer. In the Book of Common Prayer there are prayers for each week of the liturgical year. They are beautiful prayers handed down by the saints who have gone before us. They are not always simple to read, but they are always rich in meaning. And so, I want to encourage you to take a minute or two (or 10 or 20) to sit with this prayer each week. Really think about what the prayer is saying about who God is and consider what is asking of the Lord.
If we would each sit with Jesus this way each week I believe a couple of things would happen. First, I believe these ancient prayers would become our prayers. They will become more and more meaningful as we embrace them as our own. Second, I believe that as we pray them ‘together’ our lives become more and more united in Christ and in one another. Finally, I believe they will teach us about ourselves and about our Lord and that the Lord will use these prayers to shape our hearts and our affections and draw us in line with Him. This is redemptive work for our souls. Don’t rush through them; sit with them. Let them soak into you and remain with you throughout your day and week.
I pray this will be a blessing to us all. Below is the prayer for Ash Wednesday:
grace and peace,
-Ford
“Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.”
The Bold and the Beautiful
From the grocery store checkout line, it looks like the “happy” people who are “inheriting the earth” have Golden Globes and Grammys, and they fly through the air during Super Bowl halftime. They have fame like Beyonce and hair like Jennifer Anniston. These people don’t look meek to me, they look sexy and invincible. Meek, by comparison, seems dull. But we are reading words from the supreme Artist who I believe is the Painter of the pinkest sunsets, the Sculptor of the greatest mountains, and the Inventor of the smell of newborn babies. From what I can see, He doesn’t do dull. Plus, those magazine covers will change before my milk runs out, and we are after stuff that lasts forever. So I must rethink “meek”. Before I can look at “blessed are the meek” on its own, I have to look at what landed me here. First, we have to understand that blessing comes to the poor in spirit, that our lives are ultimately empty without Jesus. Then, we see the blessing that comes when we grieve the sin-distance from Him, seeing all the things we have put between God and ourselves; and we turn back to Him in wonderment that He wants us so much. And now we stand before God totally naked and utterly exposed. We have shed all the layers we put on to make a good show to the world, and we have come to the cross in humility seeing how quickly we are to worship everything around us besides Him. We are bare, real, raw, spirit-crushed, and weary from mourning. And, at this place, He looks at us and says, “Stay just like that. I have a plan for you, and it is beautiful.”
So, take a minute and think about all the things you are hiding right this very minute. There are physical things like your panty line because you don’t want anyone to know you are wearing granny panties with your skinny jeans. There’s that dreadful muffin top escaping out of said jeans, that pimple, the dark eye circles, and your natural hair color (wink!). But there are more painful insecurities. Maybe it’s your bank account, your lack of education, your disappointment that your son is not a superstar, that your daughter is overweight, the fact that your marriage is empty, that you are petrified to be alone; or maybe it’s the deep heart truth that you really just want more stuff, not more God. Shame, guilt, hiding. Whatever it is, we all do it. Layers upon layers in defense of ME. It’s our human nature to preserve our self, and we have spent a lifetime becoming experts at it.
In this one tiny verse, Jesus is telling us to take off all the layers of pomp and self-importance, and life in defense of ME. He is asking us to live surrendered to Him, and, in doing so, He Himself will defend you. Not only will He defend you, He will decorate you, He will cherish you, He will deliver you, He will never leave you; and, ultimately, He will exalt you. He will write your life story in such a way that you will look back and wonder what in the world you were ever trying to defend in the first place.
John McAurthur said meekness is saying, “I will never defend myself, but I will use all my power to defend God [in me].” William Barclay says meekness is “the characteristic that makes a man bow low before God in order that he may stand tall before other men.” I say meekness is when we go to Jesus stripped down naked to the most honest version of ourselves and we say to Him, “You dress me. You write my story. When I get up from this naked place, I want to stand with You.”
Girls, hear me clearly, meekness is not weakness, and it is not dowdy or dull. Meekness is bold and courageous and beautiful. When you are meek, you are no longer hiding your flaws, because you have surrendered them; and you are now touting the perfect splendor and strength of Jesus Christ. Why are the meek blessed? The meek are blessed because they know their lives are being handled by, decorated by, written by, sustained by, and empowered by God, Himself.
Your Great Love Story
There are three ways this verse can be taken, and they are all true. This verse can be taken literally. It speaks to those who have endured the bitterest sorrow that life can bring. Such suffering and loss can lead us to the comfort that only a perfect God can offer in circumstances that hurt too deeply to even be explained. Those who mourn in this way will be comforted. God is close to the brokenhearted. The verse also speaks to those who deeply grieve the social injustices and evils of the world. There is much scripture about fighting for justice and extending mercy. James Boice challenges believers, “[Christianity] should produce a sound social conscience. In fact, if it does not, we have some reason to doubt our Christianity.” This beatitude is a cry to live our faith like we mean it - with hands and feet and words … and even tears. Jesus is with you in this grief, and you will be comforted by His presence.
But the essence of this verse requires an honest look at the state of our hearts. This is where we must stop, focus, listen. Jesus is telling you and me, blessed are you when you mourn - as if life’s biggest loss had befallen you – over your sin. When I realized this truth, my heart and mind froze. It is far easier ONE DAY (long ago at camp, maybe) to admit that you are a sinner in theory, ask God to live in your heart, and then get up and go on your merry way. It seems a paradox to think of being happy by seeing, admitting and actually grieving your sin all the time.
I can’t say that I have my head around this fully, but this is what I my heart is whispering: this is your love story. God sees you exactly as you are, and He adores you. You are His princess for all time. He desires you to know Him, so that you can understand how much you are fully and truly loved. This requires closeness, a relationship. But there is a problem, you see. We don’t believe His love is enough. And so, in a desperate attempt to feel loved and accepted, we fill our lives with all sorts of striving and doing – getting prettier, richer, more accomplished, making life look all shiny and together. Or, conversely, we don’t see how our little life even matters, so we coast along detached. In either case, the result is distance from God. God hates this distance from us.
This brings us to the sin part. Sin, simply put, is anything that separates us from God. I love that the first sin was eating fruit, not committing murder. It boiled down to Eve listening to the voice of the glamorous, skinny, decorated serpent instead of the voice of God. I wonder what would have happened if Eve had said, Hold on, Sexy Serpent Creature, this sounds awesome and it is so pretty, but I just want to check in with God about this. He was there in Eden. It wasn’t like He had slipped away on vacation. He was within reach, but Eve looked elsewhere and she separated herself from God. She went for what was pretty and polished and promised to make her savvy in the ways of the world. Don’t we do that all the time? With God just a word away, we look elsewhere, create the distance, forget how much we are loved. Sin is murder and stealing, yes. But it is far more pervasive than that. Sin is when we cut God out of the very picture He made – your life, my life.
In this love story, now enters our Savior King. Before we even realized the distance, before we even wanted to talk to Jesus, He made a way for you and me to be near Him always. This Lover of our souls said, ‘Yes, that one with the Instagram addiction, who screams at her kids while she covets her neighbor’s life, who gossips about her in-laws, who worries about how her outfit makes her bottom look while standing in the communion line at church. Yes, that one. I love her. I will die for that one.’ While we were still ignoring Him, putting everything else as more important than Him, He was willingly mocked, whipped, flogged, spat upon, nailed to a cross, and, then, He died for us.
Anything you have ever done or ever will do that could separate you from this King who sees you fully and loves you completely, He conquered on that day. Three days later, Jesus returned to us alive, eradicating that separation for all time. That cross is now your bridge to Jesus. It is how you go from being lost to being found, from wandering around without purpose or identity to living loved, living seen and living up close and in a personal relationship with the Lover of your soul.
The paradox is now clearer. We are blessed when we mourn, because if we are truly grieving His absence, then we are seeing Jesus as the only One who can make us whole. And when we truly see Jesus, we have come to the cross. It is there at that Holy bridge that we are comforted because the distance is gone and we are with our King. We are blessed because it is here we see “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
The Cork - Matthew 5:3
I got my coffee all doctored so it tasted like a dessert. I sat down with my Bible, my journal and my colored pencils ready for lots of juicy notes. I was puffed up with the excitement of how I was going to ROCK the Beatitudes like nobody’s business. Right, so let’s see... “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Inner monologue: Hmmm… nothing coming to me. Poor? Poor in spirit? I thought these were all about squeezing the fullness out of life? Well, maybe this one needs to go with the next one to make sense. “Blessed are those who mourn...” Mourning. Grieving. Ooookay. Hmmm… The truth of it is, I had no idea. I always thought of the Beatitudes (and really the whole ‘faith thing’) as a list of things TO DO/TO BE that would make me ‘good’ and my life ‘blessed’. Me, Myself and I – oh yes, we can kick booty on some to-do’s. So, as I sat there all Suzy-Spiritual and ready to get my Christian on, you can imagine the jolt that came when I realized that there is actually nothing I can do. The Message interprets this verse “Blessed are you when you are at the end of your rope. When there is less of you, there is more of God.” William Barclay paraphrases, “Blessed is the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God.” It turns out that the beatitudes are less about adding to the list of MY accomplishments and more about letting go.
This is where it’s so easy to say, ‘I just don’t get it’ and move on. But remember when and how these words were whispered… on a hillside, friend to friend, in the midst of a culture clamoring for freedom and happiness, a culture much like our own. In the story, the Disciples followed a ‘trending’ Jesus off the big stage of familiarity and into intimacy. To ‘get this’, we must do the same. We have to shut out the noises of our busy world and take a silent minute to consider this question: if God made me, maybe He knows exactly what I need, when I will need it, and how I can get it. And if so, consider His words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Picture yourself as an empty wine bottle. Inside you have come up with the perfect plan for what is going to give you happiness. You create a diet/exercise routine, you immerse yourself in all sorts of do-good/feel-good activities, you read self-help books... You figure it all out, and then you put a cork in the top so that you don’t lose control of your plan. And then you float around in your little life. You read about how you are supposed to feel this soul-deep happiness; but even though you are doing all the right things, you still feel empty.
This verse is asking each of us to let go of all our plans, our prejudices, our I-can-do-this-my-way’s. It’s asking us to sit down with Jesus and say, “Will You do this for me?” This verse says, take out the cork. And as you do, the blessing-water, the Heaven-kingdom-goodness-that-really-satisfies fills that bottle, bit by bit. You don’t even know what or where it is coming from, but as you let go, Jesus flows in and you sink into soul-deep meanings, and you find that you are truly blessed.
Soul-Deep Happiness for the Swirling Girls of the New Year
It is January. A new year. Days of new beginnings and fresh starts. These are here-we-go kind of days. And revving the engine of the New Year are all our hopes and dreams for what the next 12 months may hold -- a healthier body, a new accomplishment, a desire to live life fully. Without knowing every person’s resolutions, it is safe to say that they all revolve around this idea of betterment. We resolve to do things that we believe will make us happier on the inside and out. No matter who we are.
This universal New Year perspective is dear to me. So precious that no matter where we are, who we know, what our circumstances, our desires all come back to this basic craving for soul-deep happiness. And how utterly amazing that there is a God that knows this about all of humanity, and even more so, that He gave us a Book that would guide us to the answers every heart yearns to know.
In Matthew 5:3-10, it’s as if Jesus sits down with His peeps and whispers, do you want to know the key a blessed life, a soul-deep happy life? I will tell you…
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Boom. There it is. That’s the secret. It’s just that it doesn’t look like what I thought it would. In fact, I sort of want to disagree and plead the whole He-can’t-mean-this-literally thing. That was clearly a different culture, right? But when I look at what was going on, I think He means every word precisely. When Jesus spoke these words to His disciples, it was at the beginning of His ministry. He was starting to gather huge crowds, and His ministry was all the buzz. (Let’s just say Jesus was trending.) The crowds wanted healing (better bodies); they wanted freedom (financial, spiritual and political); they wanted to live happy, full lives in the midst of hard circumstances. Hmmm… That sounds rather familiar. Don’t we all ponder what it is that will make us feel complete, make us happy? What will most bless our kids, our bodies? What will heal our relationships?
The buzz then was that this Jesus just might be able to deliver. And from the midst of a swirling culture where everyone was chattering about what or whom was going to save them from their own little (or big) messes, Jesus pulled aside to a quiet hillside and offered the key to a blessed life. And as easy as it would be for me to dismiss these verses as irrelevant, I must at least entertain the possibility that the words whispered on that hillside may in fact be very relevant indeed to a girl also wind-blown by the swirling culture all around her. Could it be that these words offer soul-deep happiness to this Pinterest-perusing, Facebook-stalking, all-the-time-texting, desperate-to-look-just-right, determined-to-get-it-together woman in 2015?
Well, there’s one way to find out. Will you join us every other Monday as we dig into these 8 verses? Let’s see if words spoken over 2000 years ago could ring true in this New Year. Everyone is welcome. Come as you are.
Her Secret - Proverbs 31:10-31
Even with the gap of several thousand years between when Proverbs was written and today, one thing is abundantly clear. Women have always been busy multi-taskers whose work is never done. If ever we thought that Jesus did not understand the workload of a woman, we now know that is not true. These words are manna to frazzled women everywhere saying, “I understand, I see.” That said, the Proverbial wife is a Rock Star. In reading these verses, we see a woman whose husband trusts her, who is a hard worker, and who brings in food from far away lands (probably organic). She is an entrepreneur who turns a profit. She gets up early, and she stays up late. Her kids are prepared for bad weather, because she has organized the glove and hand-me-down closet. She is kind to the needy, and she is dressed in beautiful clothes. She sounds perfect, so it is very easy to set her aside as made-up, unattainable and, therefore, irrelevant; but then we would miss our manna. I think she is offering us her secret.
There is a depth to her that goes beyond the things she does. Indeed, more than what she does is the spirit of how she does it. Verse 25 says, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, she smiles at the future.” It is this verse that makes me stop and read it all again imagining her laughing as she goes, and yet doing everything with great strength and dignity. By smiling at the future, we know this woman is doing laundry, dishes, housework, and community service with a lightness of knowing that such work is simply part of something all together bigger and more lasting. And with strength and dignity as her clothing, we see a woman assured of a worth far beyond stocked cupboards and swept floors.
If we were to list the things we do in the course of our days, we could be labeled:
cook chauffeur tutor coach psychologist closet organizer housekeeper personal shopper banker decorator nurse...
We do a bit of all these things, but we cannot do everything to mastery every day. As such, in our exhaustion, we can easily begin to limp through our days feeling only the drudgery - no dignity, no smiling. So, how does this Proverbial wife do this with a head held so high?
One of the hardest questions for me to answer is: what do you do? I look at the floor and mumble something about being a mom and a wife. My mind swims with both the magnitude of my chores and the ambiguity of my ‘label’. I am answerless. And I think this is the difference between me and this Rock Star Wife . In her heart and mind, she is quite sure of who she is. While she does in fact perform all these mundane tasks, these do not define her. Instead, I think she has written God’s word on the tablet of her heart, and she claims boldly in the depth of who she is the labels that God Himself has given her.
They are labels like this:
Bride of Christ Daughter to the King Daughter-in-law to the King Beloved Aroma of Christ Ambassador of Heaven City on a Hill Light of the world Dwelling of the Holy Spirit Hands and Feet of Jesus Disciple of Christ Headed for heaven with a room being prepared Prized and adored by the King of Kings Worth fighting for, worth dying for
These are the labels she wakes up clinging to. It is with these labels that she brings great dignity and lightness to her work. Yes, indeed, for these current days she may serve as a midnight baby nurse and a housekeeper, but she is doing so as the Daughter to the King. To be sure, she will spend time in the classroom tomorrow, but she is doing so as an Ambassador from Heaven. She knows that the first list of labels lasts only for a blink, but the second list lasts for all of eternity. And so she is clothed in dignity, and, yes, indeed, she smiles at the future. And here is our manna: these are our labels too.
The Field of Faith - Proverbs 17
Sometimes studying scripture can feel prickly. In studying Proverbs I have felt like a football player in the game of life who keeps getting penalties called on her thoughts, words and actions. Bright yellow flags are flung in the rooms of my heart and mind. There is a contentious referee broadcasting my mistakes with demonstrative arm movements, “Penalty on Katie Koon. Destructive use of her tongue, hostile reaction in anger, and ridiculous amount of time fearing what her friends think.” I read the words of instruction. I see how I don’t live like these words. I pray that I would do the words next time. Then, I get up to start a new day, and in the prophetic words of Britney Spears, “oops I did it again.” Bright…. yellow… flags…everywhere. Here’s the truth about yellow flags. I learned it from my sons who are playing football through a simple city league. Yellow flags show that you are in the game. My boys get flags called on them when they are on the field -- under the eye of the ref, trying to obey the coach, working towards the goal of doing their very best in the game of football. They are 9 and 10 years old. They don’t even know all the rules of the game; and they are certainly not superstars; but they are on that field. If they were not in the game, there would be no flags.
Proverbs 17:3 “the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests hearts.”
Ladies, these Proverbs prickle because we are on the field of faith, and that is a wonderful, beautiful, everlasting thing! We have signed up to give this game a try. We are reading the Playbook, we are listening to the Coach, we are showing up for practice, and we are choosing to live life on His field according to His Words. The fact that we feel the pinch of the flag shows that He is teaching us, and shows that our hearts are hearing. Better than silver, more valuable than gold, that our hearts are committed to living on His field makes them worth strengthening, worth testing, worth cleansing. “The Lord disciplines those He loves.”
Here’s a second truth about flags. In one week, I watched the same penalties called on my boys get called on middle school boys 5 years older, on college boys 10 years older who were seasoned enough be playing on national TV, and on professional men 20 years older who get paid millions of dollars to play the same game. At every level, the penalties were all the same. The NFL hero gets called “off sides” just as my son does. God gave me a great wink in this. The point is not about perfection, for that will only be reached on the far side of the clouds; the point is to stay in the game. Play by His rules. Live out His words. Choose His field.
Jennifer Steele shared her most frequent prayer these days as a mother in the trenches, “help me, help me, help me.” What a wonderful prayer for every woman on the field of faith. In the game, eyes toward the Coach, seeing the yellow flags, wanting to obey, oh-so-aware of how quickly we stumble, but always believing that there is help within reach. Jesus knew there would be flags as we lived this life on His field. When we see the flag/feel the prick and turn to Him for forgiveness and help, He picks up the flag and offers a clean field once again. Like a mama on the sidelines watching her little boy on the field, He is watching us and with everything He has He is whispering, “I am for you! Keep at it. Stay with me. Oh how I love you!”
Rightly Related and Possibly Unplugged - Proverbs 12-15
Proverbs 14:2 “Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly”
Proverbs 12:5 “The plans of the righteous are just…”
Proverbs 12:6 “The speech of the upright deliver them…”
Proverbs 13:6 “Righteousness guards the person of integrity”
Proverbs 12:26 “The righteous choose their friends carefully.”
Proverbs 12:28 “In the way of righteousness is life…”
In these Proverbs, there is much said about “righteous” or “upright” living. To live righteously in simplest terms means to live rightly-related to Jesus. This means taking Him with us as we go, listening to His voice, letting His words dwell richly in us, fixing our gaze on Him as we go about our lives, and making Him the true focal point of our lives. Our original challenge of MANNA was to DO the words, not just read them. This call to righteousness – to being rightly connected to God - can get stuck in my head, and not make it into my heart, my feet, my hands, my tongue. I can make my list of verses like we did in our Great Eight, but just leave them there. Very quickly, I can become a gather-er of the Manna, and not actually EAT it. I know how I am supposed to live, but I am not actually doing that.
If I am real honest about what has my focus and what I am connected to on any given day, I will tell you that it is a lot of J-U-N-K . In fact, the thing that I am most connected to is my phone. It rarely leaves my side. I check in with it all…the…time. It is a bottomless pit of fodder, and it seems to be an overwhelming pull or tug to a path far away from the one described in these chapters. From the flat screen of my phone, I can slander my brother, mock my neighbor, ignore my friend, covet strangers, flirt with an old boyfriend, feed the rumor mill, and frivolously spend time and money on things that have absolutely zero righteous value. And truth be told, I can do this in the parking lot outside of Bible Study.
It is terrifying to me that we are told to watch our tongues because they are like “a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body” capable of devouring entire forests with just a spark, and yet our culture has offered up more ways than ever to spout off. Without being inherently wrong, the age in which we live has made it increasingly difficult to live righteously.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which Eve was so tempted to eat and from which God had specifically told her not to eat is described as a ‘delight to the eyes and desirable to make one wise.” I say this so humbly, but that is exactly how I would describe my phone.
So, what if one way to choose the righteous path was to pick up the phone one time less? What if we prayed as rapidly as we texted? What if we prayed in our cars in carpool instead of instagrammed? What if we paused to thank God for the beauty of the nature, the smell of a newborn baby before we waded onto Pinterest? What if we knocked on a friend’s door and told her what a great mother she is, what a great friend she is, how you love watching her live – instead of ‘liking’ them (or silently stalking her) on Facebook? What if we fasted from our phones for even just three hours out of the day and re-connected with Jesus instead?
A challenge: Sometimes to pick up something new, we have to put something else down. Our hands can only hold so much. And the same is true with our minds and hearts. If our desire is to live righteously, wholly and rightly connected to Jesus, what is one thing you could let go of/put down/turn off in hopes of making space for Jesus Christ? Your ‘thing’ may have nothing to do with smart phones. Think about what you ‘carry’ around with you most in your heart and your mind or how you spend your time, and consider putting that down and picking up Jesus. I think He is shouting to us all…. ‘just try Me!’ I can’t wait to hear what you find…
The Great Eight
When I started reading through the Proverbs, I realized that I kept seeing the same instructions or pearls of wisdom repeated in different chapters, on different days. It reminded me of my Grocery List: milk, eggs, coffee, chocolate, cheese, bananas, bread, OJ… These are things that I need every week. They are always on my list, because they make my family work. The fact that I got milk last week is completely irrelevant to the fact I need milk this week. Similarly, the fact that I prayed for wisdom last week about this Bible study has no baring on the fact that I must seek it again this week for a hardship with a friend. Wisdom is always on my Grocery List of prayer. The same should be said of control for my tongue. This, in fact, should be put on automatic delivery. I wish they had Amazon Prime, hourly-automatic-delivery for tongue control. These are my eight themes, my Great Eight. Yours may be different. You may have a Top Ten, an Excellent Eleven, or a Fab Five (or Fifty). It doesn’t really matter what happens to be your list or how many, it is just key to have one. Because we all know what happens when we go to the grocery store without a list, you come home with Oreos and no dinner. So make a list as you mine these chapters, look for your themes, your repeat go-to heart tugs. I made a column for each theme and I wrote out verses that fell under each one. They are reminders to me, a Grocery List for the Heart that keeps me from wandering aimlessly in the aisles of life. They are sustenance; they are mile markers and exit ramps to help me get through the day and stay on track.
For these next 4 weeks, if you commit to reading about 10 verses a day, 5 days a week, you will cover 6 chapters. Go slowly, listen as you read. What tugs at your heart, what might your “cupboard of your heart” be in need of? Make your own Grocery List. The aisles of Proverbs are never ending. There is Manna to last a lifetime.
My Great Eight
- Wisdom/Understanding, how to find it, what it looks like to live with it, its value
- Making plans and how to have success with them
- Hard work and its importance in living rightly
- How to handle !!!ANGER!!!, Anxiety (and other extreme emotions)
- Our tongues and what to do about our speech
- The importance of discipline and seeking counsel and the company we keep)
- Heart Issues, the importance of how we keep, tend to, focus on the matter in our and of our hearts
- Upright living – how to live ‘rightly’ from God’s perspective and the importance of doing so