Unimportant people
God has seen my hard times. He has seen all the work my hands have done. ~ Genesis 31:42 (NIRV)
Mary said,
“My soul gives glory to the Lord.
My spirit delights in God my Savior.
He has taken note of me
even though I am not considered important. ~ Luke 1:46-48 (NIRV)
Lord, sometimes I complain because I'm feeling that I am not important enough to you. That's because I have let the world system define what important looks like. I can't go on acting and thinking this way. It is not healthy. And it is not consistent with how you do things. Time and time again, you honor the people that everyone else thinks are unimportant. You use them. You give them influence. So, I am going to ignore the feelings of unimportance. And I am going to glorify you and find my sense of well-being in you. Amen.
*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 — my own 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)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
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)
