The Lord knows each of us, His beloved, individually, and knows how to communicate with each of us in just the right way. Sharing God’s personal involvement in our lives is such a powerful and hopeful way to let others know about His being a living and caring God. Surprisingly, sometimes it may be years after these incidents have actually occurred that we become aware of God’s hand being present.
Parishioners of the Church of the Good Shepherd, and others, have shared their experiences in these collections of writings. You will read about ways God's work is ongoing in the lives of ordinary people – showing how he meets each one of us where we are. May they serve to magnify the LIVING Lord! There are countless and very personal ways that the Lord’s presence can be felt as you will note from these readings.
The Lord may speak to us in so many different ways: through words of a song sung at just the right time, through something in nature that provides inspiration at just the right moment and in just the right way, through dreams, or perhaps by presenting us with an object that only He knows will have meaning for us, or in some other special way that will be best received by us individually. For readers who have not had this kind of awareness, may such encounters in your own lives be revealed to you as you reflect on your past and as you journey into your future. As one is led to this understanding, the word “lucky” is exchanged for the word “blessed.”
The participants in Magnify the Living Lord know that God’s presence is always in our lives. They have had countless personal experiences with the Lord –and are not limited to just the ones in this collection. These writings serve to exemplify the many ways the living Lord intercedes in our lives.
As Richard Mabry states, “We are the ones with first-hand knowledge of what God has done in our lives. Small experiences and great ones form our history with God. As with the history we have received, the only way for our knowledge of God to reach others is for us to pass it on. That's our privilege and our obligation.”
Father,
Your gifts for us are left in wayward places.
We often pass them by without seeing them.
Sometimes even when we see them
we can’t believe they are for us.
They are handed to us casually by a stranger,
or passed to us unconsciously by a friend;
or we find them in an empty seat in the church.
Thank you.
Amen.
( Prayer by Edward Tyler
Prayers in Celebration of the Turning Year)
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Joy Sutton
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