I Want to Unfold

Today’s devotion includes a scripture verse, an insight and a poem - all about listening to your own life to be aware of what God may be up to today within you. Choose one and carry it with you today, asking “What is God doing inside of me today?”

The wicked put up a bold front, but the upright give thought to their ways. - Proverbs 21:29

I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it...there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him...If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this:  Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. - Frederick Buechner

I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely 
through the wildest storm of all. 

• Rainer Maria Rilke