Gathering

“You must discipline yourself to live within the boundaries of today. It is in the present moment that I walk close to you, helping you carry your burdens. Keep your focus on My Presence in the present.” (from the book, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young)

Gathering. We do it in our lives as we organize our weeks in our planners. But do we do it in our everyday lives? Do we gather ourselves? Do we pay attention? To the now? To ourselves? To our thoughts, worries, hopes, and fears? To our physical, mental, spiritual health? What is going on with you right now? Stop the distractions. Stop the running. Stop the hiding. Stop pretending.

What helps you to live within today? How can you establish routine and habit of this to make your life more grounded? Take some time today with God to practice bringing all the parts of you together—with God—in stillness, with focus, with intention. See how this affects your life throughout the week. I leave you with this prayerful poem to contemplate and feel free to use it each day as you gather yourself.

Gather Me to Be with You
(From Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)

O God, gather me now
to be with you as
you are with me.
Soothe my tiredness; quiet my fretfulness;
curb my aimlessness; relieve my compulsiveness;
let me be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release me
from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly;
from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip,
that I may be open to receiving what you give,
to risking something genuinely new, to learning something refreshingly different.

O God, gather me
to be with you as
you are with me.
Forgive me for claiming so much for myself
that I leave no room for gratitude; for confusing exercises in self-importance
with acceptance of self-worth; for complaining so much of my burdens
that I become a burden
for competing against others so insidiously that I stifle celebrating them
and receiving your blessing through their gifts.

O God, gather me
to be with you
as you are with me.
Keep me in touch with myself,
with my needs, my anxieties, my angers, my pains, my corruptions,
that I may claim them as my own rather than blame them on someone else.

O Lord, deepen my wounds into wisdom;
shape my weaknesses into compassion;
gentle my envy into enjoyment,
my fear into trust, my guilt into honesty,
my accusing fingers into tickling ones.

O God, gather me
to be with you
as you are with me.

Journeying Together,
C