Time looks like light caught in the limbs of willing trees. –Ann Voskamp

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name. Psalm 86:11

For in Him we live, and move, and have our being… Acts 17:28

If you are resolved to resist distraction, you will do so successfully; and whenever you discover it, you will recall your mind to God, calmly and without struggling, not delaying to raise your eyes to Him. This faithfulness, in returning to His Presence, will win for you a more abiding sense of it, and thus that Presence will become familiar to you. After a time the practice of speedily returning, the moment you are conscious of distraction, will win for you an habitual easy recollection. But do not suppose you can obtain such by your own efforts, for then you would be perpetually constrained, uneasy, and scrupulous, when you should be free and calm. -Fénelon

You enter into a realm of illumination, of revelation, by the power of the Holy Ghost. –Smith Wigglesworth

Last night, as we wandered through Voskamp’s The Broken Way, we considered the idea of time, (very clearly marked by the loud ticking clock from its spot on the piano) and what it means to live a life of purpose, stripped free from all that does not matter, all that is of no worth.

And Anne suggested that a better word for “sacrifice” would be that of “submission.” That there can indeed be joy in the release, a calm freedom.

Which is not always simple and painless, as the Garden of Gethsemane tears show us. Yet He chose the joy set before Him as He whispered, “Not my will, but Thine.”

And Liz reminded us of Brother Laurence’s Practicing the Presence. As one by one, our finite gift of grains of wheat must die before they produce a harvest.

And it is totally a Give Us Today our Daily Bread thing, manna in the desert, because we all so suffer from spiritual Alzheimer’s, when we forget the face of God and forget our own name is Beloved.

Dear LORD GOD, through the power of Your Holy Spirit, may I enter today in Practicing Your Presence, abiding, undistracted by the cares and imaginations of the world. 

The gladiolas lie on the counter, waiting for a container.  –Ann Voskamp

May I be a clear vessel today, sharing God's beauty for the hurting world to see.