A Living Sacrifice

Dear Urban Abbey Members and Friends:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes has returned from vacation and has provided another wonderfully evocative poem on the scripture verse below.

For me, his poem is a call to live fully in the present moment, each moment as I experience it. It is also a call for me to remember that God is in each of those moments holding an outstreched hand to pull me up if I stumble, to embrace me if I need comfort, to touch my cheek and offer acceptance with my 'warts' and all. God's only request, not at all a demand, is that I turn my will to God, open myself to the Spirit's call. God can then take me and make me an instrument of God's love, a reconciling, healing, and comforting presence to others.

I invite you to ponder Steve's poem and share with the Community what you find in it.

Shalom and many blessings, George
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Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. — Romans 12. 1-2

God of mercy, source of love, I give you myself today.

My desires, my treasures, I lay before you,
until they are transformed into your desires,
the yearnings of life, the energy of blessing that is you,
that is within me.

The desires of the world, and its expectation that I conform,
I renounce, that I may be transformed into the body of your love.

May all I do today be a living sacrifice, a gift to you of who I am,
consumed and changed in the fire of your grace.

God of mercy, source of love,
each moment I lay myself on the altar of the world.

Take me.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net/