Pause and Reflect

From: For The Inward Journey, The Writings of Howard Thurman

We Yield to the Love of God

We bare our lives to the scrutiny, to the judgment, to the love of God. There is so much that burdens the mind that peoples the thoughts, that again and again we are confused even in the great quiet Presence of God.

We yield to Him our confusions: the chaos of our minds and spirits; the tensions that tame the glory of the love of God out of our lives.

We yield to Him our frailties and our limitations: our quiet physical pains and the long chain of anxieties they inspire; the fatigue of spirit, because with reference to our private burdens often we become so tired.

We yield the desires of our minds and hearts: the private intimate wishes by which again and again the springs of our activities are fed and kept alive.

We yield the desires of which we are ashamed: those desires that buffet our spirits and torture our minds and yet seem to cling to us with such tenacity.

We yield our joys: the joy in being alive; the joy in renewed friendships; the joy in reestablished and reconciled lives; the joy in the day's work and the night's rest; the sheer joy of being loved, of caring and being cared for.

We yield our concerns for the world where we are exposed too much that casts down and depresses, to little that uplifts and inspires: war and the threat of war; the long loneliness and the deathwatch which seems to stalk our culture and fill our civilization with deadly dry rot.

We yield our lives, the nerve centers of our consent: lest the mainsprings of all our values collapse and we become like shadows in the night.

All of this-and more than tongue can say and heart can feel and mind can think-all of this we yield to the scrutiny, to the judgment, to the love of God.

Lord, Lord, Open Unto Me

Open unto me - light
for my darkness.
Open unto me - courage
for my fear.
Open unto me - hope
for my despair.
Open unto me - peace
for my turmoil.
Open unto me - joy
for my sorrow.
Open unto me - strength
for my weakness.
Open unto me - wisdom
for my confusion.
Open unto me - forgiveness
for my sins.
Open unto me - tenderness
for my toughness.
Open unto me - love
for my hates.
Open unto me - Thy Self
for my self.
Lord, Lord, Open unto Me!