9th. July. 2022. Daily Devotions.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

In this passage by C. S. Lewis, from “The Screwtape Letters”, Screwtape outlines one of the most damaging forms of greed: The sense that our time is ours alone, and when it is spent in a way that does not gratify us, something is being taken from us wrongfully:

“Screwtape outlines a fundamental deception:

Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered.

Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend’s talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tête-à-tête with the friend), that throw him out of gear.

Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’.

Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birth right.

Lord, let me not be greedy of or selfish with my time, for it is a gift from you. Amen.

Guide and direct your Church, O Lord, that in essentials we may preserve our unity, in non-essentials we may live in liberty and diversity and in all things, we may exist in love and charity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Rupertus Meldenius (1582-1651

God of all, whose love welcomes each person, in a world where many feel they have no place, help us to remember that you offer a place for all, that no one is excluded from your love and that each has a home in your kingdom of justice and peace. When we are tempted to think ourselves more important than others, remind us of the special place you hold for people who are poor, weary, and dispossessed, and for those who are neglected, reviled or unjustly treated. Help us to share in your righteous anger against all that harms our sisters and brothers, to rejoice in your all-encompassing love and to see in our neighbour the face of Christ, who makes us one. Amen.

A Prayer to End Violence Through Forgiveness
Father, violence is never the answer. It destroys Your good creation, and it grieves Your heart when people resort to it. Despite the world knowing who You are, they do not know the peace that You can give them. Lord, I ask that You arise and put an end to all violence. Extinguish pain and misery wherever it is found and spread Your gift of grace and peace upon the face of creation. Let forgiveness reign and end the bloodshed. Through Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.