Rejoice in the Lord
... God had made them rejoice with great joy. The women and children also rejoiced, and the sound of the joy in Jerusalem could be heard from far away. ~ Nehemiah 12:43b (CEB)
Paul writes: Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! ~ Philippians 4:4 (MSG)
KEY IDEA:
The Lord God gives his people cause to celebrate all he has done for them.
PRAYER:
Lord, you give us many reasons to be glad if only we pause long enough to consider them. But I tend to focus my attention on the problems that are not yet resolved. So I don't get around to rejoicing because there always seems to be one more unsolved problem. Shut down my fixation on the challenges and focus my attention on what you have done. Perhaps I will find the faith to tackle new problems by celebrating your past victories. 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)
