Long-term faithfulness
My words, which I have placed in your mouth
won’t depart from your mouth,
nor from the mouths of your descendants,
nor from the mouths of your descendants’ children,
says the Lord,
forever and always. ~ Isaiah 59:21 (CEB)
Be careful about the way you live and about what you teach. Keep on doing this, and you will save not only yourself, but the people who hear you. ~ 1 Timothy 4:16 (CEV)
Lord, thank you for your words and the message that you have given to us to hand down from generation to generation. I know how easy it is to slip off the path and to wander aimlessly. But easy is often not best. Help me to keep the long game in mind. Give me the stamina I need to continue living out the message week after week and year after year. I haven't been such a good messenger in the past. But from this point on I'm on a mission with a message from 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)
