Prayer Prompt March 30

SCRIPTURE

Mark 11:15-17

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.

REFLECTION

What would Jesus find if he walked into the rooms of our lives today — the cluttered places, the transactional corners, the spaces where we have replaced reverence with routine? The temple was supposed to be a place set apart. So are we. Jesus does not drive out the money changers in anger so much as in grief. He grieves the distance between what we were made for and what we have settled for. This week, consider one room of your heart that has become too crowded with things that have nothing to do with God. What needs to be turned over so that something holy can grow there instead?

PRAYER

God of holy fire, I confess that I have let the commerce of my anxieties crowd out the quiet where you dwell. Clear the clutter from my heart. Make in me a house of prayer — not a monument to my own performance, but a dwelling open to your presence. Turn over whatever tables need turning. I trust your hands with the mess. Amen.

-Anon