God present
And the Lord himself, the King of Israel,
will live among you!
At last your troubles will be over,
and you will never again fear disaster. ~ Zephaniah 3:15 (NLT)
Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong. ~ 1 Corinthians 16:13 (CEB)
Lord,
THANKS: Thank you for being here -- living among us. Thank you for the incarnation when God became a man. Thank you for the Holy Spirit who lives in believers.
REGRETS: With so much going for us you'd think that we'd be full of confidence and courage. But I still worry. It doesn't make sense but I'm concerned over what would happen if something didn't go according to plan. I worry over climate change, terrorists, rogue nations, and crazy politicians. I'm worried that the worst possible thing that could go wrong will go wrong.
INTERCESSION: Help me to relax and trust you.
PURPOSE: I want to stand firm and be strong, trusting that you, the King of Kings, are present and busy at work here.
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)
