Day 34 Focus: The Lord is My Keeper.
(Saturday)
Level 1: (5 Minutes) As you breathe deeply today, focus on being able to depend upon God’s goodness.
Level 2: (10 minutes) Do Level 1. After Reading the scripture adaptation, take 5 minutes to highlight words/phrases that help you to see the good God brings into our lives.
Adapted from Psalm 121.I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from whence shall my help come? My help comes from You, Lord, who made heaven and earth. You do not allow my foot to slip; You who keep me do not slumber…You are my keeper, You are the shade on my right hand. The sun does not smite me by day or the moon by night. You keep me from all evil. You keep my soul. I know that You keep my going out and my coming in from this time forth and forever. Amen.
Level 3: (15 minutes) After pausing to breathe and reading the Scripture prayer, take 5 minutes to write about what it means to depend upon God.
Level 4: (30-60 minutes) Today’s prayer really expands the theme on page 135 of our book. The focus for the sixth week of Lent has being “Receiving Help from Strangers.” This made me think of the way God helps us—God often sends strangers or those we are least likely to expect to be helpful.
God’s goodness does not always follow a logical pattern. It is diverse and expansive. We can find ourselves being helped by someone we do not know—or even someone we have not always valued. I think of the story of Joseph in Scripture where his brothers sold their annoying little brother into slavery, only to be saved by him in the end. Listen to Joseph’s words to his brothers after he has saved them from starvation. (Genesis 50.15-20)
Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” So they approached Joseph, saying, Your father gave this instruction before he died, ‘Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.’ Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? 20 Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”
When in your life has God sent strangers to help you, or has God taken something others meant to cause harm but God transformed into goodness?
