Advent Art Prayer 14
God of Life,
Our souls pant for you.
Our hearts are parched with the stress of life and the tension in the world.
We dig into the hurtful places and hold on to them like prizes.
Give us release.
Give us the strength to release our grip from resentment and control.
Give us the strength to drink from the living water you so freely provide.
Refresh our hearts.
Clear our minds.
Heal our bodies.
Amen
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food, day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng[a] and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help
6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your torrents; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Practice Deeper Listening
Inhale:
Refresh my heart
Exhale:
Clear my mind
Inhale:
Heal my body
Exhale:
My soul pants for you
For Deeper Listening
Look around life today and find the places where new life is breaking through. Plants, cracks in the sidewalks, friends who are making a new start, healing from illness?
Establish your Advent Practice.
Step 1: Set up a space in your home for your Advent readings. Make it comfortable. Add a candle. Perhaps next to your tree or at a table with a little festive placemat.
Step 2: Determine two times of the day when you might practice them so that if you miss the first one, you can lean into the second and not feel guilty.
Step 3: Each time you sit down to practice your Advent devotion, make a warm cup of something and begin with a couple of moments of silence and deep breathing. Close your eyes and breath in deeply the love of God for you. Ask the Spirit to join you. Then begin your readings.
Step 4: Have a little prayer journal nearby where you can list the things that stick with you or stand out to you during your devotion.
Step 5: Close your time with a couple of moments of silent deep breathing, thanking God for the love and grace that are freely given to you that claims you as God’s own.