This Good Day

I had the privilege as a trustee director of the Leprosy Mission of interviewing eleven candidates for the National Director’s job last week. At the end of each interview, one of our panel, a Quaker by background, prayed. This is how she started each prayer:

“Dear Lord. Heavenly Father. We thank you for today. This good day…..”

What a beautiful way of praying. ‘This good day’. After eleven times, I really got into this prayer. It meant so much.

We can choose how we manage our day. We can decide it’s an average day if we want. We can be forever looking to the future and awaiting the next big thing. We can look with fear on a particular meeting or job requirement. Or we can declare at the beginning of the day that this is a good day.

Lord I thank you for this good day.

Heartwater

Her heart was pounding. Slowly she opened the door. As an ‘outsider’, a prostitute, she had no right to enter the house and interrupt the meal. But her passion was greater than her fear. She ran to him, poured perfume on him, washed his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair.

This story from the Bible (Luke 7:38) is a beautiful picture of worship.

In those times, it was usual for the host to arrange for his guests feet to be washed- kind of necessary because of the state of the roads. But the host had not done so.

This lady does what should have been done. She should not have been there. She should not have entered the house. But her love for Jesus overcame her fear of being turned away.

It’s a powerful picture. Giving her all. Overcoming fear. The reformer Martin Luther called her tears ‘heartwater’.

As we go in to another year, what is it we are worshipping? (We all worship something!) What are we passionate about? And when we cry, cry out, shout or sing- are the tears heartwater?