One Word
This winter on The Daily Pattern we’re in a series called One Word. Each day we take one word – a feeling or circumstance – and bring a word from God to it. Let the Word of God speak to your life.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5) O Lord, I am lowly and humble. You alone are my inheritance. Amen.
Word: Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Meditation
Sick by Natalie McLaury
This past December I had a cancer scare. As someone who considers themselves a pretty healthy person, imagine my shock and dismay when an ultrasound came back “highly suspicious of malignancy.” The news sent me into a tailspin. Sick…me?!
I cried. I fretted. I catastrophized. I cried some more.
It was about a two-week wait from those initial abnormal results until a biopsy and finally the news of a clean bill of health. While I spiraled during those two weeks, the Lord used the opportunity to draw me close. I kept trying to withdraw, and he kept finding ways to assure me he was right beside me.
He was in the tearful hugs I exchanged with a few different friends, their embrace literally holding me up when I felt like I could barely make it through the days of waiting. He was in the lyrics of a song my kids sang at their Advent worship service— “yet not I, but through Christ in me”—convicting me that if indeed I was sick, I was not abandoned. He was in the emails from a woman I’d never met before, who kept appearing in my inbox as my own personal cheerleader.
By the time I got the phone call declaring “benign,” God had, through those hugs and text messages and emails and songs, pulled me out of that tailspin and set me back on the foundation of Galatians 2:20, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
I believe that even if the phone call that Monday morning had delivered different news, my reaction—while emotional—would have remained grounded in those words. I was living, sick, perhaps, but living, by faith.
For you it might not be a potential sickness. Maybe it’s bad news of another form. Maybe it’s a broken relationship. Maybe it’s troubles with work or school. Maybe it’s fear and anxiety about the future. Whatever you find yourself facing, I bet God is simultaneously showing up in different ways to remind you that he lives in you, and you, therefore, can live by faith.
Lord Jesus, you are there. Thank you for living in me, that I might live by faith. Whatever troubles I face, may you continue to demonstrate your presence and your love. Amen.
Prayer for Family
· For my immediate family (parents, spouse, siblings).
· For extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents)
· For close friends that are as family to me.
· For those who don’t have families, or whose families are broken.
· For forgiveness and reconciliation where there is division in my family.
· For provision where there is need in my family.
· For God to be the foundation, and the cross the center of my family.
· For a generation yet unborn, future members of our family.
Closing Prayer
O Lord and King, your Kingdom comes even without our prayer. But we pray that it would also come among us. We are desperate for your reign and rule, for all we see is rebellion. Come into my heart, my home, my family, my work, my church, my community. Rule with justice and with mercy. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.