Daily Office - Friday, March 27
Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 19:1-5
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat."
Devotional
After Elijah's great victory over 850 false prophets at Mount Carmel, he had to run for his life. During that process, he became both exhausted and depressed-to the point of wanting to die. For reasons not given in the text, we find Elijah alone under a broom bush and asking for death. He is, as we call it today, "burned out."
When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless-a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other's need to be cared for...
One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess-the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.
-Parker Palmer
Question to Consider
What would it look like for you to respect yourself in light of your God-given human limits?
Prayer
Jesus, you know my tendency to say yes to more commitments than I can possibly keep. Help me to embrace the gift of my limits physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And may you, Lord Jesus, be glorified in and through me today. In your name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 19:1-5
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat."
Devotional
After Elijah's great victory over 850 false prophets at Mount Carmel, he had to run for his life. During that process, he became both exhausted and depressed-to the point of wanting to die. For reasons not given in the text, we find Elijah alone under a broom bush and asking for death. He is, as we call it today, "burned out."
When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless-a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other's need to be cared for...
One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess-the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.
-Parker Palmer
Question to Consider
What would it look like for you to respect yourself in light of your God-given human limits?
Prayer
Jesus, you know my tendency to say yes to more commitments than I can possibly keep. Help me to embrace the gift of my limits physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And may you, Lord Jesus, be glorified in and through me today. In your name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
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