Be Still and Know God

 My hour of prayer this morning began with the following words from God:

Be still and know that I am God, who raised My Beloved Son to life, who makes all things new, who transforms ugliness into beauty, death into life, evil into goodness, deserts into fertile land, disaster into relief, foolishness into wisdom, hatred into love, shortage into abundance. I do  all these things and more.

That truly brought me to stillness! I then prayed as follows:

Lord, resurrect a new power in me,
a new hope,
a new love,
a deeper wisdom,
a keener discernment and
an unshakable confidence in You, in the Spirit, In Jesus, my Savior, my God, my all.

Heal me of my woundedness.

Transform my weaknesses,

my hopelessness,
my infidelities and
all within me that is not of You.

My thoughts then rested on the first reading of today’s liturgy, Acts 9: 1-20, in which St. Paul is knocked down by a blinding light and the powerful voice of Jesus, asking him why he is persecuting him. Paul responds: Who are you? “I am the one you are persecuting.” He then instructs him to “get up and go into the city “and you will be told what you must do.”

 Wow! Get up, Jesus says, and go where I direct you to go and you will be told what you must do to partner with me in making “all things new,… transform[ing] ugliness into beauty, death into life, evil into goodness, deserts into fertile land, disaster into relief, foolishness into wisdom, hatred into love, shortage into abundance.”

Do you believe that? I do!