Daily Prayer

Good Thursday morning my friends,

 

I am back at work after a wonderful two-week vacation.  While I was away I managed to get half-way through Eric Metasas' amazing biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy".  It is a great mix of story, history, theology and so much more. Bonhoeffer was an academic and a theologian, but unlike many in that category he had a love for the Bible that went beyond theology.  In a 1936 letter to his brother-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher, Bonhoeffer wrote:

 

First of all I will confess quite simply - I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive the answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God on one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible.

 

Bonhoeffer loved the Sermon on the Mount.  Why not read those chapters today (Matthew 5-7) and ponder the words in your heart?

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was also a very humble man, and this comes through in the prayer below which he penned.

 

 

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Bruce

 

 

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.

Help me to pray

And to concentrate my thoughts on you;

I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,

But with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless, but with you there is peace.

In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,

But you know the way for me….

Restore me to liberty,

And enable me to live now

That I may answer before you and before men.

Lord whatever this day may bring,

Your name be praised.

Amen

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

 

 

Bruce MacPherson

macpherson@celtic.ca / Blog: The Celtic Christian / Home: 613.489.4174 Cell: 613.720.0821

 

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