Stir Up Prayers: Tuesday's Reflection

Stir up your power and come. 
Stir up our hearts.
Stir up your power and come.

I have always loved these brief words often recited in church during the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day.

One year, decades ago, I mentioned to our pastor how meaningful those words were to me, and we decided to use them as the theme for our stewardship campaign. Everyone in the congregation was given a wooden spoon with the church's name stamped on it. We were invited to use the spoon to stir together batter for pancakes or cookies or other nourishing food and to remember our mission: stir up and be the love of God. 

This past weekend our little house was a stirred up mess! Bins pulled out of storage rimmed the edges of the living room and dining room walls. Tissue paper billowed underneath tables and chairs, as we unpacked Christmas ornaments and other decorations. Books and other items normally on display were stacked on the dining room table before being stored for the next few weeks. The house was whipped up into a frenzy, and it was hard to imagine how order, let alone beauty, would be restored.

Little by little, step by step, we stirred and stirred until all the individual ingredients, including our funny artificial Charlie Brown tree, became a new creation of peace and harmony and serenity. Even beauty. 

We were stirred up into action, and now we feel more prepared for this new season. 

The stir up prayers are a call to God to enter our lives and a call for each of us to respond to the call. To open our hearts and to use our gifts.

Many of us feel stirred up as we listen to or watch the news these days. We feel our heart rate increase. We shake our heads and sigh, worried about what seems to be happening. We talk to our friends, reporting the latest indignity or development, saying "How can this be?" Our emotions are on a rampage, energizing our fears. 

The "stir up" prayers invite us to move beyond those fears and disappointments and anxieties. The stir up prayers invite us to respond to what moves us. To serve a meal. To write a letter. To make a financial contribution. To shovel a sidewalk. To listen to someone who feels unheard. To examine an unchallenged belief. To show up. To stretch beyond our comfort zone. To live with compassion. To open to the ways God stirs up within us. 

In the next few weeks I will make many batches of cherry walnut bread, and each time, using the wooden spoon, I will stir up, gently, but deliberately, the flour and buttermilk and vanilla and cherries.

                       Stir up your power and come. 
                       Stir up our hearts.
                       Stir up your power and come. 

An Invitation
What stirs you up? How will you stir up your heart and invite a new power into your life? I would love to know.