Rest
I lift my hands to you in prayer.
As a dry land needs rain, I thirst for you. ~ Psalm 143:6 (NCV)
Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. ~ Matthew 11:28 (CEB)
Lord, I am continually amazed that you respond when we reach out to you -- when we turn to you. You are there waiting to take the heavy loads that we carry around with us because we're trying to prove to you or others -- or even ourselves -- how strong and capable we are. But we don't need to struggle in that way. Thank you for taking the loads. And please give me the humility to quickly let the loads go. I want to live a restful life -- refreshed by 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)
