Psalm 45:10-17

¹⁰  Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;
forget your people and your father’s house,
¹¹       and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him;
¹²       the people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people ¹³with all kinds of wealth.

The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes;
¹⁴       in many-colored robes she is led to the king;
behind her the virgins, her companions, follow.
¹⁵  With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.

¹⁶  In the place of ancestors you, O king, shall have sons;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
¹⁷  I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations;
therefore the peoples will praise you forever and ever.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Reflect today on the relationship between Christ and the church.
• Christ is the bridegroom of the church, the body of Christ.
• Forget the false people.
• Be led to Christ with joy and gladness.
• Blessing awaits you there.
• Authentic relationship awaits you there.
• Love awaits you there.
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, July 5, 2020, the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45:10-17
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

³⁴So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. ³⁵The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. ³⁶And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and he has given him all that he has. ³⁷My master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; ³⁸but you shall go to my father’s house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.’

⁴²“I came today to the spring, and said, ‘O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, if now you will only make successful the way I am going! ⁴³I am standing here by the spring of water; let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,” ⁴⁴and who will say to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also” — let her be the woman whom the LORD has appointed for my master’s son.’

⁴⁵“Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ ⁴⁶She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels. ⁴⁷Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. ⁴⁸Then I bowed my head and worshiped the LORD, and blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. ⁴⁹Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.”

⁵⁸And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will.” ⁵⁹So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. ⁶⁰And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,
     “May you, our sister, become
          thousands of myriads;
     may your offspring gain possession
          of the gates of their foes.”
⁶¹Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.

⁶²Now Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi, and was settled in the Negeb. ⁶³Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. ⁶⁴And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, ⁶⁵and said to the servant, “Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. ⁶⁶And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. ⁶⁷Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Imagine coming to the spring.
• What duty do you bring with you?
• Speak to the spring, “O LORD, the God of my life, if now you will only make successful the way I am going!”
• Sit by the spring and listen for God to respond to you.
• How will God make successful the way you are going?
• How will you notice the way is of God?
• Sit and listen deeply.
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, July 5, 2020, the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45:10-17
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

Matthew 10:40-42

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Sit with welcome.
• Welcome.
• Welcome all.
• Welcome me.
• Welcome you.
• Welcome.
• Welcome darkness.
• Welcome waiting.
• Welcome unknowning.
• Welcome.
• Welcome light.
• Welcome breath.
• Welcome wisdom.
• Seek the fruit of the Spirit in welcome.
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, June 28, 2020, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13:1-6
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

Romans 6:12-23

¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Invite this to be your breath prayer:  freed from sin as you inhale and enslaved to God as you exhale.
• Notice how the breath creates space in your chest.
• Let the breath reach every part of your body and being.
• Imagine living fully and completely out loud for God.
• You are slaves to the one you obey.
• How do you wish live for God today?
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, June 28, 2020, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13:1-6
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

Psalm 13:1-6

¹    How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
          How long will you hide your face from me?
²   How long must I bear pain in my soul,
          and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
     How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

³   Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!
          Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
⁴   and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
          my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

⁵   But I trusted in your steadfast love;
          my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶   I will sing to the LORD,
          because he has dealt bountifully with me.

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Bring your attention to a place within you that feels distant from God.
• Feel the yearning you have for God there.
• Use your imagination to pay attention to the details of this place within you:  the feeling, the color, the texture, the smell, the taste, etc.  Describe this place in detail.  See this place within you.
• Invite God to give light to your eyes.
• Allow the divine light of God to bring healing to this place.
• Turn away from anything trying to distract you from the light.
• See the light bringing you healing.
• What song arises from this place?
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, June 28, 2020, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13:1-6
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.

Genesis 22:1-14

¹After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

⁹When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹²He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

• Light a candle to remember Christ’s presence with you.
• Sit five to fifteen minutes in silence bringing your attention to the Breath.
• Turn your attention to the one human being in your life that is most precious to you.
• How do you desire to praise God for the gift of this human being?
• Praise God.
• In praising God recognize your relationship with God is more precious that this human being.  God is the most important relationship you have.  It is because of your relationship with God that this precious human being is in your life.
• How do you desire to praise God for the gift of this person?
• How does God desire for you to be more fully present with God?  Perhaps there is something you need to let go in the relationship with your precious human being.
• What does God ask you to let go?
• Let go.  Notice what it feels like to let go.
• In the experience of letting go, what does God have for you in that space?
• What is your message from God?
• Give thanks to God for this time in prayer and for any new insights you have received.
• Share as you feel led in the reply box below.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, June 28, 2020, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13:1-6
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

If you use these prayers in other groups, please give credit to author. Permission to use in not-for-profit settings.  (c) 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lil Smith, DASD

Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is a trained spiritual director, supervisor, and co-founder of Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, TX.  Upon completion of her spiritual direction training, Lil began Praying the Lectionary in 2011 as a spiritual practice for her morning prayer time.  Instead of reading about someone else’s experience of God, it was important for her to create a prayer practice that would encourage felt sense experience of the Holy emerging from within.  It dawned on her others might enjoy the practice, as well.  So she began to share them on this site.

As you experience the practice of Praying the Lectionary, adopt a loving, caring, and compassionate stance.  If the end of your prayer and meditation time is not pointing to love and hope, there is more work to do.  Keep wrestling.  God is faithful to your journey.  Love and hope will emerge.  Be gentle with yourself and befriend any judgment that arises in you.