Today’s evening meditation is available below in audio and script formats. The audio version is also available for free download on the player.

Reading

“I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

Quiet

As your day draws to a close, spend a few moments in silence and stillness.

Commentary

Mahatma Gandhi provides a perfect example of how anger can be harnessed. As a young, unknown, brown-skinned lawyer traveling in South Africa on business, he was roughly thrown from the train because he refused to surrender his first-class ticket and move to the third-class compartment. He spent a cold, sleepless night on the railway platform. 

Later, he said this was the turning point of his life: for on that night, full of anger because of this personal injustice, as well as the countless injustices suffered by so many others every day in South Africa, he resolved not to rest until he had set those injustices right. On that night he conquered his anger and vowed to resist injustice, not by violence or retaliation, but through the loving power of nonviolent resistance, which elevates the consciousness of both oppressed and oppressor. 

We may never be called on to liberate a people or lead a vast nation, but Gandhi’s example can apply in a small way in our own lives, when we decide to return good will for ill will, love for hatred, in the innumerable little acts of daily life. (WLB)

Blessing

May your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may able to discern what is best for your life.

—Philippians 1 (NT)

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Abbreviations

BC The Belgic Confession

CAC The Center For Action & Contemplation

CD The Canons of Dort

CIB Church In Bethesda Prayers

DZ - Donna Z.

HC The Heidelberg Catechism

MAO - Michael A. O’Sullivan

NT The New Testament

OT The Old Testament

RP - Ryan Phipps

WC The Westminster Confession

WLB Words To Live By

WLC The Westminster Larger Catechism

WSC The Westminster Shorter Catechism

ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A