Daily Devotion - Friday, March 4

Tuesday on Friday

“Teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.”
--An old hymn of Israel

One book that can be a helpful devotional book is Tuesdays with Morrie. I’ve referred to this book several times in the past and want to again today. Morrie, as you may recall, is a retired college professor who is dying from ALS. His former student, hearing of Morrie’s illness, decides to take some of his Tuesdays flying from Detroit to Boston just to learn more from Morrie. For today, Morrie’s thoughts about our emotions:

“If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. By throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is, what love is, what grief is.”

He then shares this powerful observation:
“I know you think this is just about dying
but it’s like I keep telling you:
When you learn how to die,
you learn how to live.”

This seems to be the message of today’s verse from the Psalms. May your day and your weekend be filled with wonderful (difficult) encounters with the emotions of your soul.

A prayer for today: O God, give me courage to face the emotions of my soul.

--Ben Keckler
03.04.11