Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
WEDNESDAY, February 3 (Anskar)
EDITOR'S NOTE: 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of Forward Day by Day. To commemorate this milestone, the meditations from February 1, 2010 through January 31, 2011 feature reprints of the most outstanding meditations from our past 75 years. The year each meditation was originally written is included at the end of the meditation. To learn more about our anniversary and the selection process for these meditations, click here. We encourage you also to share your comments about these classic meditations below. Our editor, Richard Schmidt, will be responding to comments for these meditations.
Psalm 72. He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth.
There are few more striking things said about God in the Bible—or anywhere else—than these words. God comes down like thunder, like lightning, in a thousand other manifestations of his power. Of course—but who except our psalmist compares him to the rain, the showers that water the earth? Shakespeare's Portia comes close when she says of mercy that it drops "as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath." But she's talking about an attribute of God. The psalmist is talking about God himself, coming down like that gentle, nourishing, life-giving rain.
God is coming down like rain in your own life. You may not be vividly aware of it at this moment, or at any moment, because it is so gentle and quiet—that coming down. Yet it is this very shower of God himself that keeps you alive, as the rain keeps the grass of the field alive. How could you live without it?
As Augustine wrote: God is semper agens, semper quietus—"always active, always quiet." (1983)
PRAY for the Diocese of Armidale (
Ps * 119:73-96; Genesis 22:1-18; Hebrews 11:23-31; John 6:52-59
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