Tuesday, March 8, 2022
God’s faithfulness
An excerpt from Isaiah 55:10-11 (NRSV)
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
Reflection from Deborah DeManno,
St. Lawrence Episcopal Church:
Humans have spent millennia trying to control water – holding it back with dams, diverting the flow into reservoirs, even reversing the directional flow of a river. We have not yet discovered how to “manage”rainfall – predictions and prayers aside, when and where rain falls is beyond our control. How we receive it and what we do with it is not. So too it is with the Word of God: we might ignore it or drown it out with the routines of our daily lives, and still, it rains down like water to give life to our spirits, if we only pause, receive, let it soak in and nourish our roots. Then the Word can bring forth growth and transformation like spring rains and snow melt in the high desert. When we receive the gift of God’s faithfulness we become like blooms in the desert.
Photograph by Deborah DeManno
For further study and prayer, the readings assigned for today are:
Psalm 17; Zechariah 3:1-10; 2 Peter 2:4-212 Peter 2:4-21
MUSIC
“Africa (Now Shall My Inward Joys Arise)”
William Billings, performed by Paul Hillier,
His Majestie’s Clerkes
Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.
God on his thirsty Zion hill
Some mercy drops has thrown,
And solemn oaths have bound his love
To shower salvation down.