January 13thFive Minutes on Friday #56
HUMOUR & RESOLUTIONS
Two weeks into 2023. How are those resolutions going?
According to the cycling/running app, Strava, the 2nd Friday of January is when most people tend to give up on their fitness goals. This fateful date has been dubbed, “Quitter’s Day”.
https://youtu.be/9GXpn4OMZOE -‘Only dread one day at a time.’ [Charlie Brown]
LOVING GOD
Brother Lawrence received little formal education. One day he had an experience that set the course of his life in a new direction. Gazing at a barren tree in winter, Lawrence saw for the first time the majesty of God’s grace and the constancy of God’s providence. He imagined himself like the tree, waiting for the life that God would inevitably bring in season. Shortly after this experience he became a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery. There he worked in the kitchen but in the repetition of his chores found a way to integrate spirituality and work which he called ‘the practice of the presence of God.’ He wrote: ‘[Human beings] invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love…. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common work wholly for the love of Him?’ [adapted from Common Prayer, 102]
SUNDAY – 1 Corinthians 1.1-9
Miss Cornelia is one of the characters in Anne of Green Gables. She is a church-going, devout Christian. One morning she asks Miss Susan about the health of a mutual friend. Miss Susan replies, ‘Oh I’m afraid she’s going to have to rely on the Lord now.’ Miss Cornelia responds in horror: ‘Oh, surely it isn’t as bad as all that!’ To be sure, to believe that God is faithful is not to believe that our every prayer will be answered just as we wish. But for Miss Cornelia, entrusting her friend to God does feel like a lost cause, a last resort. Just how can we believe the promise that ‘God is faithful?’
Reflection:
What promise of God do you return to in dry or difficult times?
What promise of God is hardest for you to believe?
What Biblical story reminds you of God’s faithfulness?
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=49Og75MrkV8&feature=share – ‘The road home’ – VOCES8