Daily reflections will begin on December 1, 2024

 


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Monday, December 23, 2024

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Mal 3:1-5 ; Ps 25:1-14 ; Rev 22:6-11 ; Lk 1:57-66 Approachable Leadership, “Why Gaining Trust is Hard: 4 Ways to Get it Back ,” Dec 2024  https://approachableleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/father-son-trust-small.jpg The 3 H’s of Psalm 25 –  H ere’s what I   know… H elp… H ey   everyone…    Psalms are interesting bits of writing - a song,   poetry and prayer rolled into one.   This Psalm (25:1-14) follows this pattern of   many of the Psalms of David – a prayer,   song, and poem – to and about God. As a   poem, it is an acrostic one, with the brilliance   of writing   the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, lost   on us because of not being able to read it in Hebrew. However, we can still pickup on the   parallelism (in the structure), the colloquial praise and worshipful tone, the spiritual and   relational themes (trust, shame, requests, statements of chara...
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Christmas Eve

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  2 Sam 7:1-16; Ps 89:1-4, 19-29; Rev 22:12-17; Lk 1:67-79 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.  Luke 2:1-7 Christmas has become a time of escape. Some of us get some time off work. Some get to spend quality time with family. We set aside our diets for a day or two…. or three. We ...
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Thursday, December 12, 2024

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Selected readings from the daily lectionary : Is 41:13-20, Ps 145:1-4, 8-13, Th 2:1-12, Mt 11:7-15 Each of these readings says something relative to God’s great power and glory. Each one speaks of His forgiveness, hope, and grace. Sometimes I make bad decisions, I waste my time, I am caught up in the drama of everyday life, and I come home feeling empty, wasted. When I have doubts about God, I think about how a person's blood vessels laid end-to-end can wrap twice around the earth. The fact that humans have only had 200,000 years on this earth, (a short time in the universe), and we have developed such unique systems is almost a giveaway that God is here.  God is that light that will brighten you.  Reading these, writing this, I realize that even when I have cut myself off from God, if I’ve gone against Him, He is still open, reaching for me and calling my name. Sometimes I have moments when I feel like I have unlocked the gates, like everything will be OK. At times like...
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