Feb 2 2022 Day 282 Luke 22:1–71

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom…”

Before instituting the sacrament of communion, Jesus does this thing that I guess I’ve never noticed. “In confer on you a kingdom.” Right there, this amazing Kingdom of God is transferred again. God confers the kingdom on Jesus, and the night before he is to be killed, Jesus confers the kingdom to the people left after he leaves this world. The kingdom is here!

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven”, maybe it’s not an uttered hope that the kingdom will come, because it already has. Maybe it’s a prayer that the kingdom that is on earth will be more like the kingdom in heaven.

Perhaps we need to stop thinking about someday, and about when we get to God’s kingdom. We need to stop putting off the good things, the kind acts, the mercy and love God calls us to. We need to stop acting now as if we’re filling the prerequisites to enter that kingdom. We need to remember this is the price for living in God’s kingdom come. This morning, I’m thinking about what I might do to make this kingdom more like the heavenly kingdom. Where can I love, share, forgive, more.

Feb 1 2022Day 281 Luke 20:1–21:37

So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.



Ouch. This is me. I worry, fret, plan, script, pronounce. I worry about having the right thing to say in response to criticisms of me, of my family, and perhaps most of all, about my faith and tradition. I think this is human nature, and that’s in part why it’s so hard to do. I want to believe this is true, that I don’t need to fret and that the wisdom and words will come. And in an unstressed moment, I can even commit to do this. On my honor, I will try to let God give me the words and wisdom. And yet, in the heat of the moment, do I really do this? If not, how can I grow in this?

One way I can improve is to make sure I go into my day, my meeting, my contentious conversation, invoking God’s presence. Cognitively, I know that without my invocation, God is present. And being intentional about it makes me aware of that truth in that moment. It helps ground me in that truth. God is in the room. By the invocation, I’m not actually letting God into the interaction, but I’m actually bringing me and my faith-full-ness into the interaction.

At one particularly challenging job, I had gotten in the habit of throwing up a quick prayer of invitation every time my phone rung. It was an easy prompt, and it settled me into knowing God was present, and that I could trust in God’s wisdom and words. Somewhere along the way, that habit faded. I don’t sit at a desk now, but perhaps it’s every time I open my email or get on a video call.

Currently, there are people in my world that push my buttons more than I’d like. Perhaps before every interaction with them, I need to send up a little prayer. God, be in this interaction, and let me hand over to you the scripting. This morning, I’m thinking about all of the small but incessant times I forget that God will give the words and wisdom. I’m thinking about how I might turn them into habits for prayer, so I can once again remember that God’s got this.