Bonhoeffer

I have been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community before I go to sleep each night.  It has been very interesting.  I don't really live with anyone so I can't practice the things that he puts forth with other people, but so far they are all practices that I can do by myself.

When he was talking about prayer in the morning, he said this:
"For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work.  At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it.  All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word.  All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him.  Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs.  'Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light' (Eph. 5:14)."

It stuck out to me for several reasons.  Partly because I try to devote my mornings to reading Scripture and praying about my day, but also because I have always been scared of darkness and so the imagery of darkness and light caught my attention.  And really, the truth of this paragraph just resonated with my experience.

When I set God before me in the morning, I am more stable, more balanced and much less swayed by the day's events.  I feel more in tune with and more aware of Christ working in my life.  I also feel that I am able to be a better light for Jesus and I am able to let God work through me to affect the other people around me.  And yet, I still have a hard time some days both reading Scripture and talking to God and also with being aware of God and letting him work through me.

I am a very broken and messed up individual and it is only in Christ that I am what God calls me to be.  I have to live in that knowledge and remain humble.

That's my little thought for today.