Devotionals

Wednesday, February 24 “Give us this day our daily bread.” For almost twenty years, Edwards Church has been offering a small loaf of bread to first-time visitors.  A group of men from the church gathered to make the first loaves–banana bread.  For a number of years, Ruth Heckman faithfully made loaves of corn bread.  Sandy […]

Tuesday, February 23 Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread When I say  this verse, the first thought that comes to me is the last day of my husband’s life, June 22, 2014.  Carroll had been in the hospital for a week and we had been told that he was nearing the end of his […]

Monday, February 22 Give us this day our daily bread… When Jesus spoke these words the tendency is to think of food to nourish the body.  If we look deeper the prayer also asks God to give us wisdom to guide us through the day. Each day presents challenges to get the required done.  What […]

Sunday, February 21 “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” This year, the Wednesday and Thursday Bible Study groups have been focusing on the gospel according to Matthew.  Because Matthew, like many Jews in his day, took “hallowed be thy name” so very seriously, he rarely wrote the […]

Saturday, February 20 “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” When I was fresh out of grad school, I gave a sermon on Jesus’ second coming. I felt, at the time, that there had been a great deal of interest in the potential for the “end times” to […]

Friday February 19 A few years, I heard about a fascinating conversation at a program at Andover Newton Theological School. The speaker was Brian McLaran, a leader in what is often called the “Emerging Church,” a movement of folks seeking new ways to do church. McLaran was talking about the kingdom of God.  A hand […]

Thursday, February 18 Thy kingdom come, thy will be done….. Pete Seeger’s wife, Toshi, is known to have said that she would have preferred that her husband had an affair with another woman than to be in love with the whole world.  I’m not sure how that would have panned out for her, but it’s […]

Wednesday, February 17 “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” Each Christmas, one of my closest childhood friends donates a poinsettia in my name to Edwards Church to decorate our sanctuary. In the spring I plant it in my garden.  Over the last four or five years I […]

Tuesday, February 16 “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” The Lord’s Prayer is considered by many scholars to be a poem in the ancient Jewish liturgical tradition.  Its language is at once expressive and figurative. I have long been enamored of poetic forms.  I’ve been reading and […]

Monday, February 15 “Do you know what I mean…thy kingdom come, thy will be done?” Grandma was sincere. She wanted to know that I knew what Jesus meant and I didn’t! What was a kingdom? We had a president and growing up across the street from Valley Forge Park, I knew we had fought a […]