Day 23

Scripture: Ps 95, 88, 91, 92; Jeremiah 11:1-8, 14-20; Romans 6:1-11; John 8:33-47

Scripture Standout: (a good one, especially considering we are going to The Lion restaurant tonight and there is a newly found list cobra in these parts!) Ps 91:

" 9 If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
   and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
   no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
   to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
   you will trample the great lion and the serpent."

Morning thought: From today's Forward Day by Day:

The situation was tense. Two workers at the state-run psychiatric hospital were trying to get an agitated young man to go back to his ward.

“Why?” he kept repeating. He was in no mood to bargain. He wanted what he wanted, and he wanted it now. Still, one of the workers calmly kept telling him that if he’d just do this now he’d be able to come off the ward tomorrow. “But I don’t want to do it tomorrow; I want to now!”

Another worker walked over and asked the patient his name. It caught the young man off-guard. His face visibly softened as he said his own name. He told the worker his version of what was going on, and repeated, “I don’t want to do it tomorrow; I want to now!”

“I know you don’t,” the worker replied, and you could tell that he really knew. The young man felt this empathy.

“Okay. Sorry.”

Life is often not as we would draw it up, sometimes to the point that we literally cannot stand it. What a difference it makes when we encounter a fellow traveler who really does understand. And what a difference it makes when we realize we’re all fellow travelers.

PRAY for the Diocese of Muhabura (Uganda)

Ps 95, 88, 91, 92; Jeremiah 11:1-8, 14-20; Romans 6:1-11