ENGAGEMENT:

• Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me-| lay it down of my own accord." His self-giving was chosen, never extracted. When you look at your own life right now-family, work, community, the people who need you-are you laying it down freely, or is it being taken from you? How can you tell the difference?

• Before the crowds woke up, Jesus was already praying in a deserted place-and from that grounding, he could tell the difference between the demand of the crowd and the call of God. "Everyone is searching for you" didn't move him. What grounds you before the demands arrive?

• When the hemorrhaging woman drew power from Jesus anonymously, he stopped everything and asked, "Who touched me?" -not to shame her, but to turn a transaction into an encounter. Where in your life are you being drawn from anonymously? What would it look like to stop, name what's happening, and turn that exchange into something real-without bitterness and without pretending?