Day 9: Mar. 4

Verse

“Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy. Heed me and you shall delight in rich fare, come to me heedfully that you may have life.” - Isaiah 55:2–3

Voice

What are the things you hunger for? I don’t mean cravings like your favorite meal or drink, or the obsessive scrolling through our social media accounts we can sometimes get caught up in, which often fuels our anxiety over the world or our sense of the inadequacy of our lives. These things are not ultimately nourishing. What is nourishing are the things that are life-giving. What is nourishing are the things that are joy-bringing, peace-arising, purpose-revealing. We live in a culture that depends on distracting us from our true hungers, because when we identify with these surface hungers we will consume more and more in the search for satisfaction. – Christine Valters Paintner

Pray

Holy one, Release our grip from calendars and planners,
soften our need to make something happen,
to try to control the outcome.

Release us from the grip of numbing ourselves,
scrolling, eating, drinking – those things that never nourish.

Reveal your impulse arising in us in a hundred different ways.
Guide our hearts to identify our true hungers.

May our hearts find rest in you.
Amen

Reflect

What is your own relationship to calendars, planning, deadlines, and to-do lists? What are the ways you schedule your life that end up costing you or depleting you? What ways do you numb yourself? What do you discover about your true hunger when you let go of the need to control the outcome of things? What longings do you find when you set down the phone or the fork?”