Every Moment Holy
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A few years ago, I was gifted this beautiful book by a dear friend, and it has been a constant help to me in practicing the awareness of God’s presence and crying out to Him in everyday moments.
This book by Douglas McKelvey is full of liturgies **that aid in prayer and remind us that every moment is holy, eternally significant, and lived out in the presence of the God who loves us and is redeeming all things for our good and His glory.
If the term liturgy strikes you as outdated and out of touch, let me share a simple definition from one of our favorite books, “Habits of the Household.”
“A liturgy is a pattern of worship we repeat over and over, hoping that the pattern forms us into the image of the One we worship”
The Lord’s Prayer, communion, singing together, and Baptism are a few liturgies we experience when we gather as a Church, but our daily lives include liturgies too. Our habits and routines, our thinking, speaking, and resting, are all leading us into the worship of something or someone. The problem is, most of the time, my habits don’t lead me to worship the God I love.
I quickly lose sight of Jesus in the hustle of life, dirty laundry, to-do lists, meetings, and meals. God’s Word invites me to “devote myself to prayer and stay alert in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2), but I rarely remember to pray at all! And I rarely know what to pray while working on the 5th load of laundry, before a hard conversation, or when I find myself frenzied because I’m running late.
In the words of Andrew Peterson, this book “leads me gently but firmly into prayers I would not have otherwise thought to pray.” It gives me prayers that “not only speak to my current situation, but cry out from within it.”
Here’s a beautiful excerpt from his Foreward of the book:
“This book reminds us that there are no unsacred moments; there are only sacred moments, and moments we have forgotten are sacred. If that’s true, then it is our duty to reclaim the sacredness of our lives, of life itself. And the first step is to remember—to remember the dream of Eden that shimmers at the edges of things… to remember that work and play and suffering and celebration are all sentences in a good story being told by God, a story arcing its way to a new creation… If the Gospel is true, then it matters in all of time and space.”
In this book, you’ll find prayers for the hours, labors, activities, blessings, celebrations, and needs of everyday moments. I love that these prayers are useful for personal or group prayer. I’ve used these beautiful prayers during family worship and in my discipleship group.
Whether you grab this book or not, I hope this post reminds you that there is a good story being told by an ever-present God wherever you are.
