Loading more...
The Upper Room Chaplains’ Ministry: All about Connection
Rosario “Roz” Picardo is a young, innovative, effective leader in The United Methodist Church. As an Read More
The Upper Room is here for you in these anxious times. Click Here
Danny Wright | Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Disciplines is available in a variety of formats: print, digital, and print/digital combo packages. A digital subscription includes access to author bios, the ability to comment, and audio lectio.
Sign Up TodayThe time has come again, as old has gone and new has arrived.
Some of us pray that this year will not be like the last,
remembering only the pains, struggles, and losses of what often
seemed, at best, the meaningless march of one incessant second
after another. Some of...
May we rejoice, do good, and recognize the beauty regardless of our place on the continuum of existence.
The scriptures that mark the new year offer a panorama of perspectives, from Ecclesiastes as a poetic musing on how life is measured out in seasons, to the vision in Revelation of what we commonly consider the end of time itself. Psalm 8 asks what the role is for humans in God’s magnificent creation, and Matthew 25 gives us a sobering criterion for how that role might be judged. At the core of all these scriptures is a strong sense of God’s presence, a loving steadfastness in which we can rest. [With only one day given, the writer has chosen to write on the Ecclesiastes passage; the other texts are listed in the readings at the back of the book.]
• Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-13. How will you celebrate this new year? What practices will you consider taking up in order to participate fully in God’s future?
Respond by posting a prayer.
I join many of those who will pray for you as you seek to discern what you are called to be at this moment. May God grant you the courage to fulfill that calling. May we all open our eyes and see the misery, open our ears and hear the cries of God’s people, and, like God through the Lord Jesus Christ, be incarnate amongst them.”
View a growing list of resources for the spiritual work of overcoming racism.
