Sunday, May 3, 2015

Mysterious love

You have not handed me over to my enemies but have set me in a safe place. ~ Psalm 31:8 (NCV/NLT)

And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God. ~ Ephesians 3:18-19 (NCV)
Loving God, I am again confronted with mystery. Why do you bother to save people like me? Why do you reveal your incomprehensible love to people like me? Why do you even love people like me? Please help me to know what I need to know and to enjoy the mystery of what can't be understood. Keep me from the frustration that comes when I try to box you in and rigidly speculate about things which cannot be completely systematized. Even though I can't fully understand what this means, I pray that you would fill me with more of you. Amen.
Challenging Words
  • incomprehensible -- Something which cannot possibly be understood is incomprehensible.
  • box you in -- idiom suggesting confinement, taking away freedom, narrow-mindedness
  • systematized -- to tightly organize objects or ideas. Sometimes when we have a tightly organized system we try to make things fit into it that do not really fit.

DAILYTEXTS.ORG

*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS

The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul.

The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston

TRANSLATIONS

ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon

CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)

CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)

EEB = EasyEnglish Bible (©2015, MissionAssist)

ERV = Easy-To-Read Version (©2006, World Bible Translation Center)

GNT = Good News Translation (©1992, American Bible Society)

MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)

NCB = New Catholic Bible (©2019 by Catholic Book Publishing Corp.)

NCV = New Century Version (©2005, Thomas Nelson Inc)

NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)

NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)

NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version (© 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

NTE = New Testament for Everyone (©2011 Nicolas Thomas Wright.)

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