Protected and Safe
O Lord, please, please, please do not withhold any of your mercy from me. Uncap the medicine bottles holding your always effective love and your pure faithfulness. Pour them all over me in order to forever protect me from all that threatens my life. ~ Psalm 40:11 (ABP)
Now may God himself, the God of peace, make you pure, belonging only to him. May your whole self—spirit, soul, and body—be kept safe and without fault when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. You can trust the One who calls you to do that for you. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NCV)
KEY IDEA:
We look to God to keep us safe.
PRAYER:
Lord, I am so grateful to be under your care and protected by your power. I easily take all that for granted and at times stray too far from you. But because your reach is so great you continue to care for me even then. However, I don't want to push things. I want to remain close and surrounded by the blanket of your love and faithfulness. I'm trusting 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 -- 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)
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)
