Tag: Be Present

Day 10 :: Living Stone of GRACE

Join us for the 12 Day YMCA Devotion Series – LIVING STONES: LEAD, CARE AND SERVE LIKE JESUS

How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?

Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the OnPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.

From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.

by Laura DeVries, Program Director with onPrinciple

The Jerusalem International YMCA is often referred to as a ‘sermon in stone’, each column, wall, and relief tell a story. 

Framing the soaring entrance are carvings depicting the Woman at the Well and a lamb – a symbol for Jesus Christ.  

I’m reminded whenever I walk past this stone-sermon that goodwill between neighbors is practiced here and all are welcome to experience grace regardless of race, culture, class, or creed.

The story of Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is surprising on many levels.

First, with a long history of racism and prejudice that was rooted in religious and racial stereotypes between Jews and Samaritans, travelers typically took the longer route around Samaria to avoid contact with each other. Jesus however, chose to walk straight through it!

Additionally, in this culture, a conversation between any Jew and an unknown woman would have broken social convention, and asking for water would have been understood as an invitation to be friends. Yet Jesus asks her for a drink!

We also know the woman was ostracized even before she shares her truth because women typically drew together in the cool morning but this woman came alone at high noon. Yet Jesus was completely undeterred by her questionable social status!

Practicing the Christian leadership principle of grace means extending favor to people whether they deserve it or not.

In this marginalized place and to this marginalized woman, Jesus extends grace, reaching past all human barriers into her thirsty soul and revealing that he is the long-awaited Christ. 

Through grace, God’s mercy meets her brokenness and her life and eternity are profoundly changed.  

As leaders who follow Jesus, we are compelled to cross human boundaries to extend grace to communities where prejudice, discrimination, and racism persist – to be intentional, regardless of, and sometimes because of social status, race, creed, or culture.

A great exchange can happen in a place of grace. Human brokenness can be exchanged for Christ’s righteousness. It is this Good News that lifts burdens, reconciles, restores, renews, and brings peace.

Pray with me:

Gracious God, give us eyes to see opportunities to reach across boundaries like Jesus, to love mercy, cling to truth, work toward reconciliation, bring healing and celebrate peace. Amen.

“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.””

Gospel according to John, 4.13-15 NIV

This YMCA devotion series brought to you by onPrinciple – click here to learn more about it – a new leadership development program to strengthen the presence of Christ in the YMCA

Click here for the entire devotion series as a downloadable PDF booklet.

Click here to access entire devotion series on YouVersion

Day Two :: Beauty is Healing and Restoration/ World YMCA Week of Prayer 2021

For over a 100 years the World YMCA has been calling its members and leaders to a week of prayer, along side the World YWCA, and this year the theme is: Beauty from Brokenness

“Although we may be easily broken, the light of Christ within us can heal brokenness and burst through, reaching out to those around us.”

Join us for a week of prayer in your heart at noon each day this week!

When we approach God with our brokenness, God offers rest, restoration and healing.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Christ Jesus, Gospel according to Matthew, 11:28-30

“The world has been shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic, in one way or another.

Many of us have been exposed to a situation that has likely left us with some degree of trauma and brokenness.

Many of us have lost either parents, friends, co-workers, siblings, or at least we know someone that has lost someone.

Some of us have been sick, most of us have been locked-in at home, and many have even lost their jobs and businesses.

Many women, young girls and children have suffered abuse. Isolation has affected the mental health of many.

Our relationships with our loved ones may have been broken by the lockdown situation.

The pandemic has prevented us from gathering with family and friends.

Strict lock- down restrictions have prevented many from going to our places of worship.

We have been broken financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

No form of brokenness is worse than another.

God wants to restore, heal and carry our troubles. Jesus comforts us….”

REFLECTION POINTS

When facing different problems, who is the first person you go to, to seek a solution?

Now that you learned that God is omnipresent and seeks to help you, how does it impact your relationship with God ?

Are you currently struggling with something where you feel broken? (You may wish to share this with God in prayer).

Do you have any stories that you can share of God healing your brokenness or that of others?

PRAYER OF BLESSING

“Lord Jesus, we want to thank you because you are amazing and merciful.

We thank you because of everything you have done and spoke.

Thanks for the invitation you give us in Matthew 11:28-30.

You came revealing the kingdom of God and have offered us salvation from sin and its consequences.

Please God, give us the courage to admit our brokenness and acknowledge our wounds, and give us a spirit of discernment to identify the things that don’t heal on their own.

We need you God to heal our hearts and bind up our wounds.

We pray for the future, for ourselves, and for communities to get back together.

We know that you are always there, willing to heal and carry our troubles.

Thank you for the peace and rest you offer to us.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Please share any thoughts, insights or recorded actions that come as a result of today’s devotions on social media using the hashtag: #WWOP21
Team: Mialy Sombiniaina, Madagascar; Rakotondrasoa, Madagascar; Martina Huber, Switzerland; Zinta Akpoko, Nigeria; Santiago Duarte, Colombia.

If you are on Instagram, I highly recommend you follow @ymcairelandchaplaincy – they post inspiring content and are participating in the World Week of Prayer with daily posts and videos.

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Click here for the whole blogpost series.

Day 9 :: Living Stone of HOPE

Join us for the 12 Day YMCA Devotion Series – LIVING STONES: LEAD, CARE AND SERVE LIKE JESUS

How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?

Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the OnPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.

From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.

by Norris Lineweaver, Board Secretary with Friends of the Jerusalem International YMCA

Over an early morning cup of coffee discussing the hope for peace in The Holy Land with a Palestinian friend from Ramallah, he said: “How can I have hope for peace with God if I do not have a relationship with my brother?”

Later that morning, we joined together in a worship service in the Oratory Chapel of the Jerusalem International YMCA, a landmark near the Old City, known as a ‘sermon in stone’.

On a wall at that Y near the altar composed of twelve stones, are sculpted bas-reliefs that tell the story of the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, from the Book of Genesis. 

It is one of the most remarkable stories about hope and restorative justice in the Bible.

This sacred story shows just how difficult reconciliation is.

It involves devastation, it comes with sacrifice, great struggle, even injury; and requires hope and trust in God.

Through striving to achieve reconciliation with his brother Esau, Jacob saw the face of God.

He named the place of his struggle and hope “Peniel” – which means “face of God”.

At noon my Palestinian friend and I traveled north through the Jordan Valley of lush green fields to end the day’s journey in Tiberius at the beautiful YMCA Peniel by Galilee Retreat Center.

From the shoreline of Galilee at Peniel one can see Mount Beatitude and the foothills of Capernaum. 

Visitors come from around the world to rest from their struggles, to be reinvigorated spiritually.

Recently an unexpected fire raged up the Tiberius coast of Galilee severely damaging Peniel, leaving much of the property in ruins.

For many like me who have benefitted from coming “face to face” with God at YMCA Peniel, this devastation caused a loss of hope of it ever being restored to a place of reconciliation and spiritual renewal.

It’s easy to ask God why Peniel was not spared from the fires.

But in the struggle to rebuild the beloved retreat center God has come “face to face” with those in the YMCA working together as living stones in hope and trust: Jews, Muslims, and Palestinian Christians.

What are the fires in your life that have caused you to lose hope?

What are the struggles you experience that could be the place where God wants to meet you “face to face”?

How might you rebuild strained relationships in your life, like Jacob and Esau did, through trust and hope in God?

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.””

Genesis 32.24-30

This YMCA devotion series brought to you by onPrinciple – click here to learn more about it – a new leadership development program to strengthen the presence of Christ in the YMCA

Click here for the entire devotion series as a downloadable PDF booklet.

Click here to access entire devotion series on YouVersion