GREETING (Psalm 8:1, 3-5)
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
HYMN 152 “I Sing the Almighty Power of God”
PSALM 149
PRAYER
(Think back to the beginning of this day. Start there, and mentally walk through the day again, while you thank God for the day's blessings and God's continuous work of love. Confess and repent of those times when you forgot, ignored or rebelled against God. Continue to pray with your personal prayer list.)
SCRIPTURE LESSON
(Choose a passage of scripture to read. It can be a chapter, a paragraph, or a particular story. Daily lectionaries are available online or in print that assign a lesson each day from the gospels, epistles, Old Testament and psalms on a three-year cycle. Or you can create a plan to read a book of the Bible, or the whole Bible. Then follow the steps below.)
Read a passage of scripture. Read it out loud, very slowly and carefully as if for the first time. Continue reading until a word, phrase or sentence captures your attention. Stop there to repeat the word, phrase or sentence over and over, listening to it deeply in your heart.
Reflect on why the passage got your attention. Consider the area of your life to which this may apply. Is God saying something to you in this passage? Take time to listen carefully to whatever God may be saying to you.
Respond to God in prayer (or with journaling, music, art or whatever you choose) about what you have heard. Ask questions. Open yourself to God’s will for you.
Rest in God’s company. Be still and quiet. Move beyond thinking, practicing interior silence. Let yourself be open to God’s presence. Savor this moment with God.
PRAYER
Our Father, you must enjoy great variety.
When we look at the sea creatures and birds,
we are astounded by the diversity among them.
The fabulous colors, shapes, sizes and appendages,
prove our imaginations dwarfed by your creativity.
Some move with fins, others undulate their bodies.
Some walk with legs, others are water-jet propelled.
Some stay put, others float around as amorphous blobs.
And some fish leap from the sea and fly through the air.
Of course you have made birds that swim fast like fish.
They leap from ice floes to catch their finny dinner.
Other birds dive from the air into the tossing seas.
And some flightless land-lubbers walk everywhere,
while others soar effortlessly in mountainous crags.
They hop across our lawns and flit among bushes.
They walk down tree-trunks while up-side-down,
and they land on our fingers to claim seeds.
What amazing variety, we are still trying to count.
They unfailingly inhabit every niche on the planet,
the boiling ocean vents to the ice fields of Antarctica.
Both fish and fowl migrate thousands of miles yearly.
Others live and die never leaving their one acre home.
What amazing variety when you could have created a few.
God, you could have stamped them all from just one mold,
but you see the countless differences and call them good.
In your image we have been created with our differences.
Blondes, brunettes, and red-heads, you’ve created us.
Nappy, curly, straight and beautifully bald are we.
And you’ve dressed us in pigmented skin-tones:
black and brown, white and red and yellow.
With a wonderfully diverse palate of colors,
you have made us in your own image, God.
Then you magnified this variety a hundred-fold,
with personalities that are aggressive, comic, serious,
frisky, serene, intellectual, sensuous, or spontaneous.
Some are sluggish, others quick-witted and always doing.
The variety defies definition, yet all are of your holy image.
All creatures, fish and fowl, foreigners and friends, thank you.
Amen.
SILENCE AND COMMITMENT
(Pause to reflect and listen. Work to push out of your mind any distracting or irrelevant thoughts. Concentrate your thoughts on the words of the hymns and choruses you have sung, the prayers you have spoken and the scriptures you have read. Be aware of what you are feeling. Listen for anything that God might be saying to you in this time you have spent together. As God responds to your prayer-time, seek guidance for how you can best respond to God’s will. Then commit to serving God’s will for you.)
HYMN 122 “God of the Sparrow God of the Whale”
CLOSING PRAYER
God, as you completed your astounding creation,
you saw the days and declared each of them good.
Now look at this day we have created with you,
and in your mercy and grace declare it good also.
May this humble offering add to your goodness,
our faith, our hope, our obedience and our love.
All these things you first created in our hearts,
to spill out and fill all creation with their blessing.
God of goodness, grant us a good night’s rest,
and let our dreams be of an even better tomorrow. Amen.
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
