4th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Jeremiah 1: 4-5, 17-19
2. Psalms 71: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17, 19
3. 1 Corinthians 12: 31 - 13:13
4. Luke 4: 21-30

• I feel so used
• Jeremiah was tasked with telling God's chosen things that they did not want to hear.  Jeremiah probably never had a party thrown in his honor by the influential of his age, no ad agencies asked him to endorse their products, I doubt anyone asked him for his autograph.  Were I in his shoes, I would have felt like an abject failure.
• How is God using you these days?
• How has the way that God uses you changed over the years that you have served Him?
• How do you think that He might be using you in the future?

• School of gratitude
• Learning to be grateful can be a hard task.  We are easily caught up in the minute by minuteness of life, and hardly ever get a chance to look back over our shoulder to see the larger patterns, the meaning of it all.  A discipline of gratitude helps us get past the muddle.
• What are you grateful to God for today?  Come up with at least five things.  They don't have to be terribly profound, but they do need to be specific.
• If you did that every day, how long do you think it would be before you would run out of things to be grateful for?
• Can you see such an exercise as a form of prayer?
• What do you think would happen if you shared your gratitude with others on a regular basis?

• Love never fails
• We all know what failure looks like.  Failure happens when an action, initiative, project, investment does not live up to its expected results.
• If love never fails, what is it that love (or Love) is supposed to accomplish?
• Where has God's love been active in your life?
• If success is the opposite of failure, how has that love succeeded in your life?

• The main stream
• My father would sometimes say "getting back to the main stream of our seminar" as way of recalling a group to the point of the present dialog.  Jesus wanted to help his fellow villagers to come back to the point of his mighty deeds, to go to their intent, not just be bedazzled by them.
• What are some things that God has done in your life lately?
• What did you learn from them?
• How have those experiences matured you?
• Do you think that there is more that you could learn from those life experiences?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God calling me into ministry today?
2. Where have I missed some of God's gifts in my life?
3. Where is God's love calling me today?
4. How am I continuing to benefit from all that God has given/done for/done in me?

Shalom!