Each day this week, read the appointed Scripture slowly, sit with the short
reflection, and close with the prayer. The readings follow Sunday’s sermon,
God Is Not at a Safe Distance.
Monday
Psalm 73:1-2
We are in the long green stretch of the year, the Sundays after Trinity, where most of the Christian life actually happens. There is no fire from heaven this week, only the prayer book, the Scriptures, and ordinary days. The psalmist knew this ground well. He did not fall in some dramatic crisis; he almost slipped quietly, the way most of us do, when the feasts feel far off and the ground feels uncertain. Walking with God in an ordinary week is its own faithfulness.
Almighty God, in the plainness of this week keep my feet from slipping. Hold me by my right hand when no feast is near, and teach me to walk with thee in ordinary days. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday
Jeremiah 23:23-24
The temptation rarely arrives as open unbelief. It comes as a slow, settled assumption that God has moved far enough off that no one is really watching. The false prophets of Jeremiah's day found that a useful arrangement; a God at a safe distance lets a man dream his own dreams and sign the Lord's name to them. But God will not be lied about. Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? Do not I fill heaven and earth? He is near, and he hears every word spoken under his name.
O Lord, thou who fillest heaven and earth, forgive me for living as though thou wert far away. Let me speak and act this day as one who knows thou art near. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Wednesday
Saint Luke 16:19-31
The rich man was not charged with cruelty. The parable simply says Lazarus was at the gate, and the rich man, as far as Lazarus was concerned, was not. The great gulf Abraham names was not dug at the moment of death. It was dug day by day across a lifetime of living as if God were far off and had no claim on what happened at that gate. Our small daily turnings away are never as small as they seem.
Merciful God, open my eyes to the one lying at my own gate. Let me not harden by degrees, but give me a heart that sees and a hand that helps, while it is still today. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thursday
Psalm 73:17, 25
What turned the psalmist was the sanctuary. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I the end of these men. The outside world had not changed; the wicked were likely still prospering when he walked out the door. But he had found his answer, and his answer was not the solving of a puzzle. His answer was God himself. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee. Not what God gives, but God.
God, my portion and the strength of my heart, draw me again into thy presence. When my flesh and my heart fail, be thou my desire above all that thou givest. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Friday
1 Saint John 4:10, 19
Saint John tells us where the nearness of God finally settles. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The love moved toward us first, always first. Augustine spent years moving God to a convenient distance, and when that arrangement fell apart he found that God had not moved at all. Thou wert with me, he said, and I was not with thee. The distance is never God's.
O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that we may love thee who hast first loved us, and please thee both in will and deed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.