Thursday, July 7

To read this morning's office, click here.

My house doesn't work right without electricity, my car doesn't move without gas, my relationship with Kris doesn't run smoothly without spending time with her, and the Christian life collapses into routines without the Holy Spirit.

"Grant me the grace," we pray in the Prayer Appointed for the Week, "of your Holy Spirit that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection." To have a heart that is "firmly fixed" means that the Holy Spirit is at work doing what the Holy Spirit does: enlivening us, softening us, and guiding us.

We need the Holy Spirit for the little and the large, for the routine and for the challenging. My day will involve hours of the routine editing and writing at my computer, and it will also involve the challenge of a radio interview. For both, as I begin this day, I am asking that the grace of God's Spirit will be granted -- so that my writing and speaking may be with my whole heart and manifest itself in love and pure affection.

How do we "get" the Holy Spirit? The famous lines of Jesus, "Ask and you will receive" is about the Holy Spirit. Ask, I say to myself, and God in his grace will give.