Ordinary Time 
Pause
“I feel so alive!” We all have experiences that can make us shout that phrase. But we can also feel those occasions don’t come along often enough and we long to know that feeling again, especially in difficult times.
Feeling alive is attached always to the One who gives us life. Open yourself in these next moments to be touched by life as it is meant to be.
Listen
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven."
Matthew 10:32–33
Think
There’s was this guy named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a German pastor during the rise of the Nazi party. He felt that things weren’t quite right, so he challenged Germany to pay close attention to what was going on. Because of his dissenting voice, he was killed.
Bonhoeffer didn’t submit to the attractive cadences of his country’s ruling party. Instead, he heard Jesus speaking something totally different, and he chose to follow him. In one of his books, Bonhoeffer writes that cheap grace is a life that claims discipleship but does not really commit to Jesus’ struggle. Costly grace, however, is the hard journey of decision-making, relationship-building, and true repentance that comes only when our lives are entirely bound up in Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t promise us that the road will be easy when we commit to being his followers. Jesus does promise that there is life in the costly grace of his kingdom. And he promises that because we listen to him, he goes with us.
Lesley-Ann Hix
Pray
God, give me the courage to embrace the costly grace you offer. Help my whole life acknowledge you. Amen.
Go
Breathe. Breathe deeply and feel the spirit of life within. Know that the Giver of life is with you, making you alive by the Spirit that is still at work in all of creation.
Then walk. Walk confidently into your day, aware that the life-giving Christ is alongside you with every step.
