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Walking by the Sea
If I were Jesus’ therapist, there is one moment in particular that I’d love to process Read More
Brian R. Bodt | Read John 10:22-30
The joke among my friends is that I’m failing retirement. Six months after retiring in 2018, I took a six-month interim parish appointment that lasted thirty months, including fifteen months during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. After re-retiring for 15 months, I became a part-time pastoral care staff member...
God, we are your sheep who yearn to follow. May the witness of your voice and your works help us do just that. Amen.
The familiarity of these passages should not lull us into complacency about their blessings and expectations. The psalmist’s words about the shepherd who comforts also leads to paths that challenge us to seek moral uprightness and justice. In Acts, Luke presents Tabitha as an example of one such disciple, whose restoration to life is the fulfillment of the psalmist’s promise. Revelation reminds us that the righteous life is not lived without struggle, but that the promise of redemption overcomes the worst that we encounter. John shows that even Jesus, the Lord who is the Shepherd, faced critics of his good works. Yet those who desire righteousness hear Jesus’ voice, he knows them, and “no one can snatch them out of [his] hand.”
• Read Psalm 23. What are the “paths of righteousness” into which you need to be led?
• Read Revelation 7:9-17. Who do you think stands “before the throne of God?” When? Why?
• Read Acts 9:36-43. To what “good works and acts of charity” are you called? How do you guard against righteousness becoming self-righteousness?
• Read John 10:22-30. How do you discern Jesus’ voice from the cacophony of voices that daily surround us? How is it different? To what does it call you?
Respond by posting a prayer.
