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The intent of Pilgrim Processing is to provide commentary on the Daily Lectionary from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The format for the comment is Old Testament Lesson first, Gospel, and Epistle with a portion of one of the Psalms for the day as a prayer at the end.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Six Life-Changing Words

The pressure to be "good" is too much to bear sometimes. Paul says in Romans that he isn't able to do it, that the good he wants to do is the very thing he doesn't do and vice versa. Living by the Spirit 24/7 is the only possibility and I don't find myself doing that on a daily basis. What I find is that there is a lot of painful stuff in my heart and head that keeps me from being able to live that way and I need the confession of Morning Prayer to begin the day and the confession of Evening Prayer to end the day. I don't often pray those specific prayers but I need to confess my sins in bookending the day.

The bigger problem with being "good" is that I can rarely do that without pride. At some level I see it as having made a conscious decision to be good or do good and when I do I then take credit for the good I have done which makes it not good at all. Doing good or being good can't be the goal of life, being Christ-like is the goal, doing all things at the direction of and for the glory of God.

I memorized a prayer to say at meals when I was a kid that began "God is great, God is good." If I could live out of those six words every day my life might actually look different. We need to remind ourselves of those two great truths at least the three times a day that we eat meals. If we could work those deep into our hearts and heads it would change the way we think about everything else.

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