Celtic Daily Prayer

We continue to discover God in his temple as in the Celtic morning prayer we respond to the Call: Who is it that you seek? And Respond: We seek the Lord our God.

Such a simple yet profound phrase; the Lord our God. Right back in Deuteronomy 6:4 we read, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” As the children of Abraham this is not a bad starting place for us. Jesus referred to Himself as “Lord” many times for example, concerning his preparation to enter Jerusalem on a donkey he is recorded as saying,  “If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ (Luke 18:31) In John 13:13 we here Jesus saying to his disciples, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.. And when we compare the Old Testament with the New, we find several times when the “LORD” (Yahweh) of the Hebrew Bible is equated with the “Lord Jesus” by the apostles. 

Seeking to know God better, John Chrysostom became a hermit in the mountains near Antioch in A.D. 373. Although his time of isolation was cut short by illness, he learned that with God at his side, he could attend alone against anyone or anything.

That lesson served Chrysostom well. In A.D. 398 he was appointed patriarch of Constantinople, where his zeal for reform antagonised the Empress Eudoxia, who had him exiled. Allowed to return after a short time, Chrysostom again infuriated Eudoxia, who sent him away again. How did Chrysostom respond to such persecution? With these words:

“What can I fear? Will it be death? But you know that Christ is my life, and that I shall gain by death. Will it be exile? But the earth and all its fullness are the Lord’s. Poverty I do not fear; riches I do not sigh for; and from death I do not shrink.”

Perhaps the words of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy of War and Peace fame are worth considering today. “Don’t seek God in temples. He is close to you. He is within you. Only you should surrender to Him and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness.”

Give me a deep hunger for you. Fill me with your Spirit, that I would seek you more, that I would love you more, and that my mind would be filled with more of you. Help me as I go through this day, that I would see each challenge as an opportunity to worship and serve you. May you be glorified with how I live this day. Amen