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: Revelation 3:15, 19-20
“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. … Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
Meditation
Indifference by Megan Roegner
There are some physicists who theorize that the universe will end in “heat death.” This hypothesis is based upon the second law of thermodynamics, which observes that in an isolated system heat always flows from hot to cold until it reaches a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Imagine your coffee cooling as the steam rises, forgotten on the counter until it’s lukewarm. The problem for the universe is that this eventual equilibrium will mean that there is no longer energy available for useful motion. Everything in the universe will just…stop. Another way to think about the second law of thermodynamics is through the concept of entropy, or disorder. Entropy never decreases. Once you stir your cream into your coffee, you can never unstir it and separate the two parts again.
People’s hearts aren’t so different from thermodynamic systems or cups of coffee. It’s hard to stay hot or cold, to not lapse into the ease of indifference, especially after facing difficult events. But though indifference may be easy, it’s dangerous. Writing about the state of the modern world after World War 1, poet T.S. Eliot described a group of morally indifferent “hollow men” whose lack of conviction has led them to a state of utter hopelessness. Eliot ends his poem with the famous lines,
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Elie Wiesel, a Holocost survivor, delivered a speech in 1999 called “The Perils of Indifference.” In the speech he said that “Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. … Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.”
Like T.S. Eliot and Elie Wiesel, we have been witnesses to our own generation’s disaster and despair. How can we keep our pain and passion from turning into the tempting but dangerous equilibrium of indifference? Thankfully, unlike the physical universe, the human spirit isn’t an isolated system. Despite how easily we lapse into apathy, we are made in the image of a far-from-indifferent God. We are made to care deeply. As it says in Micah 6:8, we are meant to “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
We can’t stay “hot” on our own, but we have a God who transcends human frailty and the laws of physics. He’s knocking at the door.
Lord, forgive us for the sin of our indifference. Help us to turn you for the strength and energy to do justice, love kindness, and walk always with you. 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.