Week #4 – Discipline

Invocation:
Heavenly Father, sanctify my body and soul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever I shall think or speak or do, may be by me designed for the glory of Your name, and by Your blessing may it be effective in Your work. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Scripture Reading: Psalm 26

Daily Scripture:
Monday John 3:25-36
Tuesday Luke 12:35-48
Wednesday Matthew 25:14-30
Thursday Romans 12:1-2
Friday Luke 2:41-49
Saturday Deuteronomy 27:1-8
Sunday 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Selections For Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer
May your prayer this week lead you past bent knees and reverent spirit into the determining choices of your daily living. Let it bring your will to bear on all the things that lead you away from serving God.

Hymn: “Sweet Will of God”

My stubborn will at last has yielded;
I would be Thine and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
“Lord, let in me Thy will be done.”

I’m tired of sin, footsore and weary;
The darksome path hath dreary grown,
But now a light has risen to cheer me;
I find in Thee my star, my sun.

Thy precious will, O conquering Savior,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discord’s hushed, my peace a river,
My soul a prisoner bird set free.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The center of God’s will my home.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.
-Mrs. C. M. Morris-

Benediction
Lord, let my life be orderly, regular, temperate; let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no little ends and low imaginations pollute my spirit and unhallow my words and actions. Let my body be a servant of my spirit and both my body and spirit be servants of Jesus, doing all things for Your glory here. Amen.

Selections For Meditation:
*So we need delay no longer. It is time to begin. However stumbling or uncertain the beginning, it is worthwhile. And the beginning is more than the first stab or the first several stabs. Prayer is a matter of keeping at it. The rewards will come no other way. Thunderclaps and lightning flashes are very unlikely. It is well to start small and quietly. No need to plan heroic fasts or all-night vigils. You should have it firm in your mind that prayer is neither to impress other people nor to impress God. It’s not to be taken with a mentality of success. The goal, in prayer, is to give oneself away. The Lord loves us — perhaps most of all — when we fail and try again.
-From Clinging — The Experience of Prayer
by Emilie Griffin

*Prayer tomorrow begins today or there will be no prayer tomorrow. The penalty of not praying is the loss of one’s capacity to pray! The promise of tomorrow is the hunger of today. As man reaches out to the stars and touches ever-expanding space, he is drawn to the discovery and value of his inner space. Prayer no longer lies on the edge of life. It moves into the core of the person’s life and meaning. Without prayer, there is no way, no truth, no life.
. . . Prayer is a journey, a path that is created only by walking it. It creates and reveals oneself in the process. There are many ways of prayer, some new, some to be rediscovered. Writing is a way of discovering one’s own gift of prayer. Scripture, Penance and Communion are Christ’s way of praying in us. Discovering His gifts is to discover Him and those closest to Him. Eventually one is led out to the desert where one discovers the new creation and becomes a new creature.
-From Prayer Is a Hunger by Edward Farrell-

*The denying ourselves, and the taking up our cross, in the full extent of the expression, is not a thing of small concern: It is not expedient only, as are some of the circumstantials of religion: but it is absolutely, indispensably necessary, either to our becoming or continuing His disciples. . . . If we do not continually deny ourselves, we do not learn of Him, but of other masters. If we do not take up our cross daily, we do not come after Him, but after the world, or the prince of the world, or our own fleshly mind. If we are not walking in the way of the cross, we are not following Him: we are not treading in His steps; but going back from, or at least wide of, Him.
-From The Works of John Wesley, Sermon
XLVIII, On Self Denial by Albert C. Outler-

*It is imperative that those who are to teach religion and guide souls should steadily enlarge their conception of and capacity for God; yet how many adult Christian workers go on, as they should do, steadily expanding toward eternity? The one thing, I suppose, which more than any other testifies to our spiritual vitality? If we do not grow thus, the origin of that defect is and can only be in the poverty of our own inner lives of prayer and mortification, keeping that spiritual vitality at low ebb. Prayer & mortification are hard words; but after all, that which they involve is simply communion with God and discipline of self. They are the names of those 2 fundamental and inseparable activities which temper the natural resources of man to His supernatural work; and every Christian worker must have in his life the bracing and humbling influences of such continuous self-surrender and self-conquest. They involve a ceaseless gentle discipline; but being a disciple means living a disciplined life, and it is not very likely that you will get other disciples, unless you are one first.
-From The House of the Soul and Concerning the Inner Life, by Evelyn Underhill-

*God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not Him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God which demands these things.
Experience has taught us that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things — unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on Him.
You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
-From Teaching a Stone to Talk by
Annie Dillard-

*One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wandering.
-From The Practice of the Presence of God,
by Brother Lawrence-

*Some of us are more naturally night people or morning people. Our situations further influence what time is best to set aside. The advantage of early morning is the way it sets our attentiveness for the day. The advantage of evening is the way it reintegrates and settles us down for the night. It is ideal to set aside 10 minutes to an hour both morning and night, giving more or less time as our situation allows.
Most important though is not the number of times or duration, but our deciding on some time and duration and sticking to it, at least for a trial period of a few weeks. This means that once we’ve decided to do it, we treat it like brushing our teeth: it is just something we “do,” without agonizing over it each time. Brushing our teeth, once it’s a habit, is very simple. So is prayer time. If we leave open a crack for “re-deciding” every day, then it becomes complicated. We’ve undercut the very simplicity that prayer time can reveal.
When you feel resistance to prayer time, just lightly “see” the resistance, and get on with it. Don’t judge your resistance. Don’t even judge yourself if your resistance is so great that you give up your discipline one day. Judgment complicates our resistance and turns what is simple into a heavy struggle. Just gently notice what has happened, smile, and go back to your discipline the next day.
-From Living Simply Through the Day
by Tilden H. Edwards-