By Linda Booth of Lee’s Summit, Missouri USA
For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
One Sunday I attended the Bayou La Batre Congregation in Alabama. I had been there in 2005 soon after the water from Hurricane Katrina filled and destroyed the members’ church home. Pastor Danny gave me a testimony tour of the newly renovated church. He shared stories of God’s presence amid the disaster.
As we stood in the sanctuary, he told me of standing on a ladder, painting a column by the baptismal font. He was weary, emotionally and physically. God spoke to him in a mysterious way, asking, “Why are you doing this?”
Danny said he climbed down the ladder. “For the glory of God!” he answered.
As the words left his mouth, he said the Spirit blew like a mighty wind, filling the sacred space that once had been filled with mud and water.
Moments after he finished his testimony, 20 or 30 children began arriving—beautiful children, little ones and teenagers, children whose parents had been born in Laos and Cambodia and made their living working on shrimp boats.
As the worship service began, the children sang, “Come, Holy Spirit Come.”
The Spirit blew among us again, through the voices of children who had experienced Christ’s lasting peace through the love of humble people who told them about Jesus and loved them unconditionally.
It may be easy to wave palm branches on Palm Sunday and shout Hosanna!
It is harder, but much more joyful, to prepare the way so God’s children can experience Christ’s peace and love and become his disciples, too.
Prayer Phrase
“See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).
Weaving a Life
Hold, or imagine yourself holding, a piece of patterned cloth. Examine it carefully. Notice overlapping threads, mingling colors that form the design. Write a journal entry or meditate about the threads and patterns of your life. What design do you see? How does the life pattern you are weaving create justice and wholeness in God’s world? What new pattern is God calling you to weave?
Today’s Prayer for Peace
Engage in a daily practice of praying for peace in our world. Click here to read today’s prayer and be part of this practice of peace.