Devotion for Friday and Saturday Before the First Sunday After the Epiphany, Year C (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Family Record-Marriage Certificate, 1800s

Image in the Public Domain

Enjoying God Fully

JANUARY 11 and 8, 2022

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The Collect:

Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit

and revealed him as your beloved Son.

Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service,

that we may rejoice to be called children of God,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns

with the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 22

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The Assigned Readings:

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 (Friday)

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (Saturday)

Psalm 29 (Both Days)

1 Corinthians 2:1-10 (Friday)

1 Corinthians 2:11-16 (Saturday)

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The LORD’s thunder brings flashes of lightning.

The LORD’s thunder makes the desert writhe,

the LORD makes the desert of Kadesh writhe.

The LORD’s thunder makes the oak trees dance around

and strips the forests bare.

So in his Temple everyone shouts “Glory!”

–Psalm 29:7-9, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers (1989), by Harry Mowvley

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Q:  What is the chief and highest end of man?

A:  Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

—The Westminster Larger Catechism

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Koheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, discovered that he enjoyed his wealth, but that he got nothing else out of it.  That enjoyment of life’s blessings is a gift from God, he wrote.

Psychological studies have revealed the links between increased wealth and happiness.  Up to a certain amount, more wealth means more happiness.  Past that point increased wealth leads either to no additional happiness or to greater stress.  Often people who are wealthy beyond the point at which more wealth does not increase happiness desire more money.  Yet some of the most content people have had little and some of the most miserable people have been wealthy.  Likewise, some of the poorest people have found poverty to be the cause of great misery and some of the wealthiest people have long known that money can stave off many indignities and sorrows.

The real issue is priorities.  Wealth can insulate one from a sense of total dependence on God and of responsibilities to and for other people.  This reality, I am convinced, explains many of the hard sayings regarding wealth in the Bible.  Furthermore, wealth cannot shield one from all of life’s indignities and sorrows.

Another priority is choosing happiness.  Being happy is a choice, regardless of one’s level of wealth, marital status, health, et cetera.  Establishing the priority to notice the plethora of blessings from God and to revel in them is a positive course of action.

A negative course of action is to fail to recognize divine wisdom.  St. Paul the Apostle wrote that such failure led to the crucifixion of Jesus.  Christ was divine love incarnate, but that love proved threatening to human power structures built on violence and on artificial scarcity and exclusiveness.  Those blinders prevented those who killed Jesus and those who consented to his death from recognizing their sin.  Those people could have enjoyed God fully, but they failed to recognize God in their midst.

A habit I remind myself to nurture is to identify five blessings every day.  (I should do better at this practice than I do, but often I become distracted.)  To identify five blessings each day and to revel in them is a realistic goal.  So is to do this for many consecutive days without duplicating any items on the daily lists.  The main point of this spiritual exercise is to develop a mindset of gratitude to God and of awareness of the great number of blessings–to enjoy God more fully.  Koheleth and St. Paul the Apostle would approve.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MATTHEW THE EVANGELIST, APOSTLE AND MARTYR

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/enjoying-god-fully/

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