Category Archives: Daily Bread Devotional

Use It or Lose It
By Evelyn Richardson of Nauvoo, IL, USA

“…so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” —Matthew 25:25 NRSV

This is the day! “For what?” you might ask. “It’s just another day.” I know I have a whole new day to use any way I choose. Let’s see…shall I crawl back into bed for another hour or two of sleep, or should I get up and be about the Lord’s business?

Should I wallow in my own self pity or count my many blessings? Should I eat until I’m full or make a hot dish for a shut-in? Should I let jealousy, envy, pride, and prejudice rule my day or should I look for ways to offer joy, hope, love, and peace to those I meet?

I can come up with all the usual excuses: “I’m too old; I’m too young; I don’t have time; I don’t have enough money. That’s not my job; it takes a strong person for that job; I can do it later”…on and on it goes, and so does the day. And then it’s gone—along with the opportunity to respond. I have buried my day’s talent.

To love the Lord is to serve the Lord. To serve the Lord is to serve those in need. Shall I make that phone call to a lonely person? Send that card or note to a homebound person? Visit a neighbor with whom I can share Christ? The choice is mine. What am I waiting for?

Prayer for Peace

Thank you, God, for getting my attention so I can get busy. What would you like me to do? I’m listening.

Spiritual Practice: Making Responsible Choices

Prayerfully seek God’s guidance in your choices. The practice of discernment invites us to orient our lives toward God and God’s vision for us and creation. Begin by reviewing the responsibilities and opportunities in the day before you. Take these choices into prayer, asking God for wisdom and insight about what matters most.

Offer yourself to God using the prayer of Teresa of Avila: “God, what do you want of me today?” Sit prayerfully with this question as you review the day again. Be aware of images, thoughts, names, or actions that come to you. Ask for a blessing to live this day responsibly and compassionately in the Spirit of Christ.

Peace Covenant

Today, God, I will begin peace with the very next action I take.

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Christ’s World Cup
By Cathy Loving of Independence, MO, USA

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. —Romans 14:17–18 NRSV

I enjoy watching World Cup football (soccer, for some). It amazes me to see the skills of the athletes. They move the ball with their feet with such finesse and flair. It appears effortless and fluid. How do they make it look so easy?

A good athlete in any sport devotes hours and hours of practice and dedication. They repeat skills or movements until those actions become natural responses—like breathing.

I wonder if I practiced my faith of sharing Christ’s love and peace with that same devotion, would my deeds become like breathing. Would my actions be effortless and fluid? Would charity be a way of life, not just a seasonal focus?

I think I had better keep practicing.  

Prayer for Peace

Holy Spirit, help us discipline our spiritual lives to be natural to us. Let peace be an intuitive and familiar action as we share.

Spiritual Practice: Develop Disciples to Serve

Read and reflect on Psalm 42:1–2. As disciples of Jesus Christ, our call is to respond to people and their needs. The call to journey inward can restore us in times of physical or spiritual depletion. Imagine you can feel a vessel at the center of your being (a clay jar, a crystal vase, a metal bucket, or other container). Imagine drawing something from the vessel to share with another person, but as you reach inside you find only a tiny pool of stagnant liquid. You are thirsty and dry—empty. Listen prayerfully again to the psalm, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” As you feel restored, thank God for the opportunity to be a responding, serving disciple while you move into the outward journey. Remember this exercise as you drink water throughout the day.

Peace Covenant

Today, God, I will practice peace until it is part of my identity.

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Challenge: Leave Christ Out
By Lu Mountenay of Independence, MO, USA

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. —Matthew 5:9 NRSV

My assignment was to speak for Sunday worship at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City. This was a challenge for a Trinitarian. I had in mind what I would say—that was my first mistake.

The liaison for the worship service reminded me several times before the service that their group included persons of many different beliefs—atheists, agnostics, non-Christian theists, and Christians. Knowing my background, she asked me to be careful with my language, and not use terms like Jesus, Christ, Son of God, Redeemer, and so forth. Also, she asked, please don’t use “God” too often; otherwise someone (like her) might feel left out or offended.

I respected her wish to use language that was more “inclusive” of the congregation. This was a lesson for me, who thought of myself as already inclusive in thought and language. However, I found my circle of inclusion wasn’t yet wide enough. Now the challenge: write a homily using language that included everyone by excluding Christ!

I learned as I wrote. Whenever I was tempted to quote Jesus or use him as an example, another person would come to mind whose life or actions could represent the role well. My good friend Jim from Community of Christ went to jail (and plans to go again) for trespassing in protest at a nuclear weapons plant. He is willing to risk his freedom for the sake of the Earth and its people.

My new friend Lauren, a Buddhist, took on the legal system. While jailed for civil disobedience, she pondered and wrote about the injustices suffered by the imprisoned poor, not worrying about her own plight. Jane, Henry, and many other friends at Catholic Worker Houses rival the generous and self-sacrificing nature of “you know who.” Dick and Barbara, members of my own congregation, typify the hospitality and love of (dare I say it?) God.

I could name so many others who present the image of Christ, and, without saying his name, you would know who I was talking about. Just between us, many of those at All Souls UU are among those in whom I see Christ, whether they like it or not.

I had good responses from the homily and All Souls invited our group to return. The experience was humbling and made my faith in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit even more precious to me.

Prayer for Peace

God of all faiths, help us build ecumenical bridges and to respect people with different beliefs. As we embody shalom and share peace, may it be with intent to include all.

Spiritual Practice: Welcoming Unity in Diversity

Meditate on Unity in Diversity. Create a large circle with your arms. See and feel the diverse people God invites inside the sanctuary of Christ’s peace represented by this circle.

Who is easiest to welcome? Whom do you struggle to include? Confess the dividing walls between you and people too different or “challenging” to invite into your spiritual home. Ask God to forgive and heal barriers that keep us from loving one another.

Peace Covenant

Today, God, when words fall short, I will invite people to you by my actions.

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From the Diversity Team: Community on the Bus
By Peter Smith of Odessa, FL, USA

Open your hearts and feel the yearnings of your brothers and sisters who are lonely, despised, fearful, neglected, unloved. Reach out in understanding, clasp their hands, and invite all to share in the blessings of community created in the name of the One who suffered on behalf of all. —Doctrine and Covenants 161:3a

I joined the Community of Christ Historic Sites fall bus tour. The ten-day tour was a resounding success. The trip reaffirmed and strengthened my appreciation of our church heritage.

However, my most memorable experience on this trip had nothing to do with historic sites. Instead, it had to do with my 48 fellow travelers—most of whom I had never met before. We were from 13 different states and all walks of life. Some were lifetime church members, and some had found Community of Christ as adults. We were a diverse group of travelers, packed together on a bus for ten straight days.

Around the fourth day of the trip, my mother phoned and told me her doctor had found a mass on one of her ovaries and was going to do further testing. There was a great fear in her voice as she shared this news with me. I was overcome with fear for what these tests might find.

The next morning I shared my concern with my companion travelers. Never before have I experienced such a compassionate response to a prayer request. The entire bus immediately joined in prayer. The next day, they passed a get-well card around the bus and sent it to my mom. They filled it with well-wishes and prayers from all of these “strangers,” united in love and concern for her. Their response overwhelmed me beyond words—such an outpouring of support.

Her test results were normal and the doctors successfully removed the mass. Beyond this good news, though, I am eternally grateful for the compassionate love shown to me by the community on the bus, people who have now become my brothers and sisters in Christ, and my friends forever. I have learned that we are never “strangers” when we unite ourselves in Christ-like love and compassion for one another. There is truth in the words of that beloved hymn: “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord… and they’ll know we are Christians by our love…” (by Peter Scholtes, ©1966 F.E.L. Publications, CCS 359).

Prayer for Peace

Open our hearts, compassionate God, that we may sense the fear of others. Drawing on your strength and love, we can reach out in understanding and share your assurance of peace.

Spiritual Practice: Offering Blessings of Community

Receive and share Blessings of Community. Begin with a prayer of gratitude for the friendships in your life. See and feel connections with family members, spiritual friends, people in your congregation and community, and people and creatures in God’s sacred web of life. What blessings flow to you from these circles? How have you felt the love of the community?

Reflect, pray, or write in your journal about the call to be “Community of Christ.” Go deeper each day as you consider what acts of blessing you can complete for stranger and friend alike.

Peace Covenant

Today, God, I will clasp the hand of one who is fearful and share the peace of Christ.

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Inner Christmas
By John Bonney of Springfield, OR, USA

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” —Matthew 2:6 NRSV

There are two realms in which Christmas plays itself out each year. The one we respond to, talk about, and plan is the one that goes on with and around us—the Christmas outside ourselves.

We fill Christmas with stories and depictions of the birth of Jesus, with all the events traditionally shared surrounding the event. This Christmas is for gift giving, shopping, decorating trees, and hanging lights. This Christmas has large dinners, gatherings of family and friends, and sometimes we spend more than we should. In this outside-of-ourselves Christmas we sing carols, read Amahl and the Night Visitors, and see plays and pageants. This is the Christmas that goes on around us, and in which we often take an enthusiastic part. Part. But it’s not the whole deal.

Then there’s the inner Christmas. That is, the Christmas that affects each of us personally and individually—the Christmas within our hearts and minds. We’re not always aware of the difference. Others probably never know how we imagine and play out Christmas. Every person creates his or her own Christmas. It is whatever we make it and understand it to be.

Advent doesn’t start until the fourth Sunday before December 25, but we often get so excited, we begin to decorate and celebrate long before that. And of course the retail community tries to jump-start Christmas as early as the day after the previous Christmas.

My personal Christmas has spanned much more than the few days of Advent—even more than the days after the US Thanksgiving Day. Yet my personal Christmas has nothing to do with retail sales. It takes hold of me somewhere during the final quarter of the year. It’s as if the sweet presence of this noble and precious time of the year grows in essence day by day leading right up to the grand and delightful arches of the gates of Christmas Day. Then beyond those arches is a brief, glowing passage, drenched in opalescent light that opens into the calm sea of another year.

How much we need Christmas—the real, peace-initiating, good-will-toward-all Christmas! There are too many negative, destructive, and dehumanizing actions in the world. To linger in the darkness buries us midwinter—no hope, no joy, no peace, no love. We are hopeful, each year, to expect Creation’s expression. In that promise, in that birth, in that coming, is also the promise that we, too, can show creative ability in our own lives. We are not alone.

So s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the Advent season if it shines hope on your inner Christmas. Celebrate the birth of Christ all year long.

Prayer for Peace

Tender Shepherd, let us mull our inner praise and worship during Advent season. Help us share the peace that was meant to be when Peace came to Earth.

Spiritual Practice: Invite People to Christ

Read and reflect on Doctrine and Covenants 162:3b and 163:2b. Pray to be aware of people who might be receptive, and therefore blessed, by your sharing of the message of the Living Christ. Imagine being in relationship with them and inviting them to Christ. In preparation, discover your personal testimony of Christ. “Be persistent in your witness and diligent in your mission to the world.” Repeat this mantra throughout the day: “Christ’s mission, our mission, my mission.”

Peace Covenant

Each day throughout the year, God, I will celebrate Christ.

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