Today is Sunday, the seventeenth day of May, 2026 in the seventh week of the Easter season. It is the seventh and last Sunday of Easter.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Today is the fifteen month mensiversary of the beginning of my transformation.
It is day 137 of 2026, with 228 days remaining in the year.
Day 24,902 of my life
193 days until Thanksgiving!
Today is National Graduation Tassel Day. I think we may be celebrating graduates in one of our worship services, this morning. Today focuses on that swishy little dangly thing that hangs from the weird hat that graduates wear. It’s also Emergency Medical Services Day. If you know someone who does that, show them some love. And it’s National Idaho Day. Why May 17th? That’s a really good question.
That’s also a really good question. At this stage of my life, it’s not difficult to stay motivated when learning something new, because if I’m learning something new, it’s because I really want to learn something new. For example, I’ve been learning Spanish for close to a year, now. One way I stay motivated is by doing it in community. I use an app to learn, and I have several friends who also use the app (they are not all learning Spanish; some are learning French and other languages). But the app makes a game out of it, so there are motivational “quests,” some of which involve my friends, and we also have “friend streaks” to keep alive, so we “nudge” each other, along the way.
Today, S and I have to be at church by 8:05, to practice with the choir and instrumental ensemble. We sing in both services. I also have a solo rehearsal between services. It is right after the first service, so I should be able to be present for most of the Sunday School class, as it is the final one for this season. Then, right after the choir sings in the second service, we will leave and pick up our grocery order on the way home.
My first cup of coffee, this morning, is CAFE Olé by H‑E‑B Taste of San Antonio, one of the Favorite Five. “For a trio of cinnamon, chocolate and vanilla flavors, try CAFE Olé by H-E-B Taste of San Antonio coffee.” My second cup is Moka Java, from Angelino’s. “Full-bodied with nutty and chocolate notes.”
JESUS TIME
Heavenly Father, who on this first of days called forth light out of darkness, shine into my soul with the power of Your love, give me a new heart, and create a clean spirit within me. Enlighten also my heart through Your Gospel to know You.
Glorious Savior, on this day You rose from death and the grave and proved Yourself the Redeemer of all the world; give me faith to trust You wholly for the forgiveness of all my sin, and grant me grace to rise to newness of life.
Holy Spirit, who on this day charged the Church with joyous faith and vigor, fill me also with Your healing, Your gift to speak, and Your strength to love.
O Holy Trinity, my glorious God, my strength and shield, set apart my heart to Your service this day, give to my worship sincerity and earnestness, and to my praise joy; grant that my fellow believers and I be kept at all times in the unity of faith, and refresh me with Your Word; in Jesus’ name. Amen.
(Lutheran Book of Prayer, Prayer 18, Sunday Morning)
Heavenly Father, this is the day of resurrection and rest. Thank You for this day to hear Your living Word and obtain the blessed Sacrament of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! Forgive me all my sins and prepare me rightly in heart and mind to joyfully receive all Your generous gifts so that I may serve You well in Your kingdom. Bless all pastors who powerfully proclaim the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection that all may come to repentance and new life! Bless Your church throughout the world in order that it may be a burning lamp, attracting all who see it to You. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
(Portals of Prayer, Prayer for Sunday Morning)
Father, help us keep in mind that Christ our Savior lives with you in glory and promised to remain with us until the end of time. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(For All the Saints, Sunday of the Week of Easter 7, Opening Prayer)
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
(John 7:38 ESV)
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
(Romans 11:33 ESV)
Today I am grateful:
- For another opportunity to gather with the community of saints, worship the Lord, sing His praises, and be fed by Word and Sacrament
- That rivers of living water flow out of my heart
- For the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God
- That I am not fighting for freedom, but learning to live from it
- That it is promised: We WILL be like Him! (1 John 3:2)
- For breathing new life into me!
Lord, in Your mercy, hear, now, the prayers lifted up to you for all who need strength, healing, comfort, and peace.
If you are reading this, I encourage you to stop and pray for someone, at this time. Or, if there is something on your heart, please leave a comment. What can I pray for you?
Psalm of the Day – Psalm 68:4-6
Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts;
his name is the LORD;
exult before him!
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
God settles the solitary in a home;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
(Psalms 68:4-6 ESV)
Untamed Prayers – Father of the Fatherless, by Chad Bird
“Our God is the ‘Father of the fatherless and protector of widows . . . [who] settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners into prosperity’ (Ps. 68:5-6). This does not mean, of course, that he is deaf to the prayers of millionaires, or that he leaves healthy, intact families to fend for themselves. No, our Father is concerned for all, from the highest to the lowest, the haves and the have nots. The lowest, however, such as widows and orphans, the hungry, and the weak, are often singled out as the special recipients of divine compassion – and as those who are to be the recipients of our compassion. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted; let’s make sure we are, too.”
“Father of the fatherless is he, as well as Friend of sinners. He makes us his own, fills us with his Spirit, and bids us love and care for those around us.”
For All the Saints – Sunday of the Week of Easter 7
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
(Exodus 3:1-12 ESV)
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
(Hebrews 12:18-29 ESV)
The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
(Luke 10:17-24 ESV)
“[Writing in a novel about the curate, Thomas Wingfold] The weeks passed and seemed to bring him no light, but only increased the earnestness of his search after it. He would have to find an answer before long, he thought, or he would have to no choice but to resign his curacy and look for a position as a tutor.
“Of course all this he ought to have gone through long ago. But how can a man go through anything till his hour is come? Wingfold had all this time been skirting the wall of the kingdom of heaven without even knowing there was a wall there, not to say seeing a gate in it. The fault lay with those who had introduced him to the church as a profession, just as they might introduce someone to the practice of medicine, or the bar, or the drapery business – as if the ministry were on the same level of choice with other human callings. Never had he been warned to take off his shoes for the holiness of the ground. And yet how were they to have warned him when they themselves had never discovered the treasure in that ground more holy than libraries, incomes, and the visits of royalty? As to visions of truth that make a man sigh with joy and enlarge his heart with more than human tenderness – how many of those men had ever found such treasures in the fields of the church? How many of them knew, except by hearsay, whether there be any Holy Ghost? How then were they to warn other men from the dangers of following in their footsteps and becoming such as they? Where in a community of general ignorance shall we begin to blame? Wingfold had not time to accuse anyone. He simply had to awaken from the paralyzing struggle between life and death. He thought afterward, when the time had passed, that surely in this period of darkness he had been visited and upheld by a power whose presence and even influence he was completely unaware of. He did not know how else he could have gotten through it. Strange helps had come to him from time to time. The details of nature wonderfully softened toward him, and for the first time he began to notice her ways and shows and to see in them all the working of a different humanity. He later remembered how a hawthorne bud once set him weeping; and how once, as he was walking miserably to church, a child looked up in his face and smiled. In the strength of that smile, he had been able to confidently approach the lectern. He never knew how long he had been the agony of his most peculiar birth – in which the soul is at the same time both the mother that bears and the child that is born.”
(George MacDonald, The Curate’s Awakening)
I include this excerpt from George MacDonald, today, because of its relevance to the day. Again, I note, it is the 15th mensiversary of the beginning of Christ’s transformation of me, that began in February of last year. And MacDonald’s excerpt seems so on point to that event. 60+ years, I went . . . I do believe I was “in Christ” through all of that, having been baptized into Him at the age of 9 (March 19, 1967). But missing so much, because I had no one to “mentor” me through all of that. Then I got to this Lutheran church, with this pastor of discipleship that blew into my life like a hurricane, with her vibrant, living love of Christ and His Word! Through her influence, the Holy Spirit began breathing new life into me, and hasn’t stopped since.
Jesus,
You came not to be ministered unto
but to minister.
Your ministry was your presence,
and it still is.
So we thank you for your presence
among us and within us.
Since we are most ourselves
when we are most attentive to you
and obey you,
Help us to go about our daily business
with your spirit
and to know that when we pray,
it is you praying within us.
So may we carry out our ministry
and yours.
Amen.
(For All the Saints, Sunday of the Week of Easter 7, Closing Prayer, John B. Coburn)
Thank You for loving me, Jesus; thank You for filling me with Your Spirit; thank You for teaching me to love others as You have loved me (I’m still learning that one). Thank You for being near to the broken-hearted and working on me to do the same. You are the Friend of sinners, of whom I am one of the worst. You have loved me, You have made me love You more than I ever have before, and You are helping me love others.
Thank You, thank You, thank You. And even though it often looks like the light is not making progress, not winning, You have kept on loving us. We have faith and confidence that the Light will win. The Light has come and shined into the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it. You have loved us; we are the beloved, even though we are still sinners, and You have made lovers out of us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Breathe it in, soak it up; You’re surrounded by beauty and love!”
Grace and peace, my brothers and sisters! Drink deep of His love!
CHRIST IS EVERYTHING!!!
Listening To His Voice 