“Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.“

Psalm 125:2

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

In Hebrew mysticism, the verb חוג (chûg) means ‘to circle’, ‘to encompass’, or ‘to draw a boundary of wholeness’.
It’s the same root from which chag (festival or pilgrimage) emerges—a journey that returns to its point of origin.
Every act of worship and spiritual service is thus a circle: it begins and ends in God.

→ To dwell (yashav) is to sit at the center of this circle.
→ To abide (menō) is to remain within its motion without being flung outward by distraction.
→ To meditate (hagah—“to murmur, to ponder, to let the word revolve within”) is to trace the circle inward until the Word becomes flesh within you.

When the seeker stops chasing after God “out there” and returns to the Presence “in here,” He discovers that what was lost was never gone—only forgotten.

Augustine understood this mystery when he confessed:

“You were within me, and I was without; and it was there that I sought You.
In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which You created [instead of You].”

Repentance (metanoia in Greek—literally “a change of mind, perception”) is not turning from sin alone but turning from separation. It is the recognition that God is not beyond the horizon. but the horizon within your soul—the divine circumference that holds your being together.

WORD FOCUS

Metanoia (μετάνοια): “a change of mind, perception, ‘map’, navigation, consciousness.”

PRAYER

Lord, You are the circle I cannot escape—and I no longer wish to.
You are the center that calls me home when my thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind.
Teach me to dwell (yashav) at Your heart, to abide (menō) in Your rhythm,
and to meditate (hagah) until Your Word is woven into my breath.

Let repentance not be a punishment, but a returning—
a remembering of the love that has never left me.
Draw me again into Your holy orbit,
where striving ceases, and only Presence remains.

Amen.

To abide is not to wait for rescue, but to dwell in relationship.
The circle closes not by effort, but by surrender.

TODAY’S REFLECTION