Heb 3:7-14
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’”
Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Ordinary Time of Our Lives
This week we enter the longest and hardest (at least to me) season of the liturgical year—Ordinary Time. It is easy to show gratitude to God during the joyous times of our lives—our Christmases and Easters. We readily turn to God during our times of anxious waiting, of hardship and of grief—the Advents, Lents and Good Fridays of our life. But it can be hard to keep God in mind during the normal uneventful times of our lives. It is so easy in Ordinary Time to grow an “evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God”. Today St. Paul tells us to “exhort one another every day”. We all need to be exhorted (which means “strongly encouraged”) to grow in faith, especially during Ordinary Time.
Who needs your love and support? Who can you help grow in faith? And who are the people that strongly encourage you?
—Peg Anderson is an attorney with Fox Swibel in Chicago and is on the board of Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in Barrington, Illinois.
Prayer
Jesus, you were always there for your friends. Help us to support and encourage our friends and family members to grow in faith, not only in times of great joy and times of crisis, but also during all the day-to-day stuff of their lives. And Lord, please help us to keep our own hearts always open to your love. Amen.
—Peg Anderson