Day 2 – To be in debt to one another
Morning prayer
Start you day with this prayer
Lord, You promise to be with us until the end of time.
We praise and thank you for your loving presence,
even if we don’t recognise your eyes yet.
(Silence)
Let your will be done.
Amen
Prayer station
Use this symbol to lead you in prayer for the day.
Symbol: A fruit or a vegetable
We pray for our farmers and the producers of our food, for the drivers of the trucks and the delivery companies.
We say thank you for the processes that ensure that food products are still available in this time of forced solitude.
Reflection
Read this reflection on the text for the day.
Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law – Romans 13:8.
According to Paul, all Christians are deep in debt. We actually carry, as he puts it, a double debt. There are debts that we can pay off with money, for instance taxes. This kind of debt Paulus suggests, as any good economist would, that we always pay (Rom 13:7). In fact, the quicker we can pay off this debt, the better it will be for us, because it only makes us poorer to not do it.
But we also have another kind of debt that we cannot pay off with money – a debt of love towards one another (Rom 13:8). This debt we can only pay by acts of love we show towards one another. The wonderful thing about being able to work off our debt of love, is that we cannot go bankrupt but only enrich each other. Therefore, it is good that we will never be able to pay off this debt. After all, we are filled with a joy like none other when we serve each other.
We are, however, not only enriched by our acts of love towards others, but also by their service of love towards us. We are doubly enriched by serving each other in love.
Lord, thank you for paying off our debt towards you. Thank you that we do not have to pay you back. We ask that you help us to live out this love and mercy that we received from you towards others. Amen.
Isaac’s Soap Opera
Watch this video with your children
Liturgy for life
See the ordinary things you do in and around the house as signs of God’s care.
At this moment we are spending more time at home than usual … because for the next 20 days we will be at home all the time. Our children have more time to watch television. It sometimes causes a fight about what will be watched. When my daughter feels that the turns are unfairly distributed, a judge (a parent) gets called in to judge over the matter. The judge (that’s me) actually feels that the biggest reason for conflict, in this specific case, it that they are not listening to each other.
Create a few moments to talk to each other. You can intentionally choose to switch off the television and light a candle in the lounge. Ask everyone in your house how they would like to listen better to one another in these next three weeks (and hopefully also afterwards). Make a card with all the “listening rules” that you come up with written or printed on it and put it down next to the television. Listen together to the words of Lukas Maree’s song “Die weduwee se kruik” (The widow’s jug) (click here to listen to it). One of the sentences in the song says, “I suspect the heart works like the widow’s jug, staying full even though she uses it.” This refers to the story in 1 Kings 17:7-24. To love one another does not always make mathematical sense, but it makes life possible.
Children’s activity
Play with your children.
Wow! 21 Days of isolation. 21 Days in which we’re only allowed to be in our homes (or gardens) and can only go out for the most essential things like food and medicine. It can be a little rough! All the things we usually do during the day, like school, sport, church … are not happening anymore. It can really confuse you and maybe even bore you a little. These daily readings will help you to spend some time with Jesus every day in a creative and fun way. You can do these readings and activities by yourself, with your siblings, or with your entire family. Ask one of the grownups to post your activity on Facebook so that others can enjoy it with you. Tag it with #solitudecalendar #churchtogether
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Teksvers
How many times have you told someone: “You owe me”? Or maybe someone has told you this before. The Bible verse for today speaks of a different kind of “owing” or debt. There is a kind of debt that we should give back to other people, like when we borrow something or when we pay our taxes. Followers of Jesus have another debt to pay and that is the debt of love. Luckily it is not a difficult debt that costs us a lot of money. All it asks of us, is to love everyone around us: people we know well, but also people that we don’t know that well or that we don’t even like.
What kind of debt have you owed other people?
What does “fellowman” mean?
Activity
Use sticks, leaves or small rocks lying around in your garden (do not break or pull something out) and build heart symbols with it in different places in your garden. You can invite someone to search for all the hearts when you have finished building it. Leave the hearts in your garden for a few days to help you remember that we must love each other.
If you do not have a garden:
Make hearts from scraps of paper in your house. Decorate the hearts and hide them in different places in your house. You can then invite someone in your house to look for them. Afterwards, leave the hearts in a few places in your house for a few days to help you remember that we must love each other.
Use the prayer station to pray together.
Creative prayer
Colour and reflect (Instructions are available under the picture)
INSTRUCTIONS
• Choose your art materials such as coloured pencils, coloured pens and koki pens. Any of these will work.
• Colour in the picture and do the activity.
TIPS
• Choose no more than five colours. If you’re unsure of which colours to use, take out all the colours and put them on the table. Close your eyes and pick up five.
• It may be easier for you to first start colouring the edges and not big blank spaces.
• Don’t stop halfway, especially if your reason for stopping is that you think your picture isn’t pretty. This is the purpose of the activity – to get your attention away from unnecessary thoughts like, “Am I doing this right?” and to focus on the people that you love.
• When you’ve finished colouring the picture, put the picture in a prominent place in your house, like your bedroom or in the kitchen.
Consider sharing your picture on social media with the hashtags #solitudecalendar #churchtogether
Thank you’s and testimonies
Share your testimony with us! Use the online form below.
Aanhaling
Teks
Aanhaling