Giving + Receiving

I’m getting used to people helping me because they want to.

I think I learned, growing up, to always repay what someone does for you with another act equally as meaningful. It’s possible that there is no other act equally as meaningful. It’s possible that the “tit for tat” world is but a corruption of the purer world, the world of “give and receive.”

When we give, we’re enlarged.

When we receive, we’re enlarged.

When we take, we shrink.

When we refuse, we shrink.

Of course, all that has a context, but a giving and receiving world seems to me to be the quest – the Eden we seek.

I know lots of people who count their pennies and nickels to make sure they are both paid and paid up. It seems a darker life to me, to live in such a way. If I posture myself to give today, I expect that God will take quite good care of my family and I.

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Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms

Sheltering Mercy, along with its companion volume, Endless Grace, helps us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. This book contains 75 prayers drawn from Psalms 1-75, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning in the Psalms. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

This artful, poetic, and classic devotional book features compelling custom illustrations and foil-stamped hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms.