Daily Devotions and Podcasts
Prayer: Lord, help me to see You in every part of my day, even in the places I least expect. Open my eyes to Your presence in the ordinary and the extraordinary moments of life. Amen.
The Cathedral of Hope Devotion Ministry began as an answer to Progressive Christians who wanted to start their days with a little insight, observation, or wisdom about the Christian faith from their own point of view. Conservative internet devotions were abundant, but there was not much out there for liberal thinkers. The need was clear.
Being a large church, we had a generous amount of writing talent available and also a large number of congregants with theological training who were not on the pulpit. In the early days of the ministry, most of the writing was done by the clergy, but gradually the majority of the writers emerged from those lay volunteers.
That dynamic is still in place as new authors are always joining in to keep the ideas fresh. It’s a fitting structure for any center of progressive thought. This particular Body of Christ has many voices and each one has a unique and important story to tell.
SCRIPTURE ļ»æ Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. WORDS OF HOPE God’s GPS What God has planned for you nothing, no person, no force on Earth or in heaven, no demon, absolutely nothing can stop it from coming to pass. You may be doubting whether or not you are going to get the money you need, that college degree, the house that you have always wanted, or the baby that you keep seeing in your dreams, but if God wants you to have it, then it is already yours. You can relax. Stop doubting. God has something special for you that isn’t for anyone else. Just because you do not see it, does not mean that it is not on its way. This is the GPS. No, not the navigation system in your car. This is God’s Postal Service and it is fast, reliable, and always on time. If your dream has not arrived yet, then that does not mean that you should give up on your dream. It could mean that something is not ready yet. When God wants to bless you, God wants to make sure that you are ready for the blessing. The bigger the blessing the bigger the preparation. When we stop trying, stop believing, and stop seeking we sometimes stop what God is trying to do in our lives. Time will pass and another opportunity will present itself for you to achieve your dream. This is not a coincidence but God trying once again to bless you. However, if we keep turning away, ignoring the signs, then eventually we will become deaf to God’s voice urging us to keep trying. God does not do all the work. God opens doors but it is we who must walk through them. Take a chance on investing in yourself. There are always going to be risks, but you are not taking the risk alone. God will be there guiding you. If you are not meant to have something, then you will know because the distance between you and what you are seeking will keep getting further and further apart. It will feel like something is pulling you in another direction. That could be God leading you towards another path. Do not be discouraged by this because it is always the case that God’s plans are better than our own. Keep fighting for your dreams; it may take years, but the rewards are greater than you can even imagine. PRAYER Spirit of Wisdom, Give us discernment for the journey, patience for the waiting, and gratitude when we finally receive the promise. You have loved us before we loved You and have plotted our course. We praise You, not because You give us gifts, but because You give us the assurance of Your love. Help us to be as steadfast in our faith inasmuch as You are steadfast in loving us. We pray by Your holy name, Jesus. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
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Words of Hope Podcast
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SCRIPTURE ļ»æ Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. WORDS OF HOPE God’s GPS What God has planned for you nothing, no person, no force on Earth or in heaven, no demon, absolutely nothing can stop it from coming to pass. You may be doubting whether or not you are going to get the money you need, that college degree, the house that you have always wanted, or the baby that you keep seeing in your dreams, but if God wants you to have it, then it is already yours. You can relax. Stop doubting. God has something special for you that isn’t for anyone else. Just because you do not see it, does not mean that it is not on its way. This is the GPS. No, not the navigation system in your car. This is God’s Postal Service and it is fast, reliable, and always on time. If your dream has not arrived yet, then that does not mean that you should give up on your dream. It could mean that something is not ready yet. When God wants to bless you, God wants to make sure that you are ready for the blessing. The bigger the blessing the bigger the preparation. When we stop trying, stop believing, and stop seeking we sometimes stop what God is trying to do in our lives. Time will pass and another opportunity will present itself for you to achieve your dream. This is not a coincidence but God trying once again to bless you. However, if we keep turning away, ignoring the signs, then eventually we will become deaf to God’s voice urging us to keep trying. God does not do all the work. God opens doors but it is we who must walk through them. Take a chance on investing in yourself. There are always going to be risks, but you are not taking the risk alone. God will be there guiding you. If you are not meant to have something, then you will know because the distance between you and what you are seeking will keep getting further and further apart. It will feel like something is pulling you in another direction. That could be God leading you towards another path. Do not be discouraged by this because it is always the case that God’s plans are better than our own. Keep fighting for your dreams; it may take years, but the rewards are greater than you can even imagine. PRAYER Spirit of Wisdom, Give us discernment for the journey, patience for the waiting, and gratitude when we finally receive the promise. You have loved us before we loved You and have plotted our course. We praise You, not because You give us gifts, but because You give us the assurance of Your love. Help us to be as steadfast in our faith inasmuch as You are steadfast in loving us. We pray by Your holy name, Jesus. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
SCRIPTURE ļ»æ Genesis 1:28-31 God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. ’God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. ’And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. WORDS OF HOPE The population of the Earth is well over 8 Billion. That is a lot of people and it is fair to say that if people have failed to follow God’s instructions in most things, we’ve done a good job with ‘fill the earth’. There are some interesting things to note. God uses almost the same language about blessing, being fruitful and multiplying a few passages earlier; before the creation of humans. Similar words are spoken to Noah as he departs the ark. God again says things of this nature when talking to Abraham about Isaac and Ishmael. But just as we have gone overboard with multiply, humans have taken subdue and dominion a bit far. We often treat this place with distain. The heat we are living under is a result of that distain. Our resources, plants, animals, air, water are all in peril. We conduct wars which not only destroy people but also animals, plants, habitation, the earth itself. We tear up the earth to mine the materials for our lives. I do not know what the original Hebrew word in the Bible was that was translated as dominion. But I do know that the root of the word dominion is domus, Latin for home. So, as we contemplate the world and the huge number of people in it, keep in mind and your prayers all the people of the earth. This place is our home and is meant for everyone. There are a lot of us and many, perhaps most of us have great needs in basic survival. Pray for our home, where we all live. PRAYER Creator, you made this place and all the universe to be home for your creation. May we come to love and cherish Your creation as the gift you mean it to be. May we remember that this is our home. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare
READING ļ»æ “In indigenous ways of thinking, we don’t call these natural resources. We call them relatives. They are beings, people, which share their gifts with each other and us. When someone shares their gifts with you, your first response is gratitude, and that gratitude cements a response of love.” Robin Wall Kimmerer WORDS OF HOPE I slide my fingers slowly over the inside of her outstretched arm, smooth and brown, learning, as with a lover’s hands, each part of her. A low curved ridge curls over a shallow trough —the sinew and ligament of her limb-- and border the long muscular shape. The word “limb” arcs the synapses of the brain to suggest that we are both limbed beings, kindred, Sisters. Sister crepe myrtle has been rooted in my back yard for years. First planted as a small scrub, she has grown wildly, her crown shaped eastward—as some of the sunlight has been absorbed by a much larger hackberry tree which overshadowed her. Still, her rangy arms stretch in their own design over my yard. She is not “aesthetically pruned”, as some like to do, and tiny scratch marks from 1000s of squirrel journeys cover her trunk, but to me she is beautiful in all seasons with her fushia blossoms in summer, orange-red tinged leaves in fall, and polished bare branches in winter. Though I have always been of Nature’s tribe, stopping to behold the tiniest purple flower in the grass and listening raptly to the joy-song of the wren, I have realized that even this deep appreciation is objectifying in some sense—I the observer, they the other, I the witness, they the witnessed. At this time of my life, I am seeking to learn, pray into, and practice an even deeper spirituality of relationship with the natural world. One of my teachers in this school of relationality is Robin Wall Kimmerer-- plant ecologist, scientist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass , and wisdom-carrier of the Patowatomi people. Kimmerer notes that nowhere in our conservation dogma does the word love appear. And yet for her love based in gratitude is at the heart of things. The task is to invite people to love the world, as we will sacrifice to save what we love. She references an ecopsychologist who asserts that we have a “species loneliness”—separate as most of us are from the living world. And, from the stories that people have shared with her, many are feeling an almost desperate longing for renewed connection. Kimmerer believes that the earth too is lonely for us and yearns to be in loving relationship. Now, in this time she calls the Great Remembering, we are recalling what it was like to hold the earth in love and be held by her. May we learn our lessons well and become not just stewards of the land, but her lovers. PRAYER Oh God, who loved and blessed all creation, animate in us the devotion and love necessary to sacrifice for the preservation and flourishing of the living world. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon
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