Listen

You visit the earth and make it abundant, enriching it greatly by God’s stream, full of water. You provide people with grain because that is what you’ve decided. Drenching the earth’s furrows, leveling its ridges, you soften it with rain showers; you bless its growth. You crown the year with your goodness; your paths overflow with rich food. Even the desert pastures drip with it, and the hills are dressed in pure joy. The meadowlands are covered with flocks, the valleys decked out in grain— they shout for joy; they break out in song!

Psalm 65:9-13

Think

Growing in God’s kingdom will bring about the desire to take care of God’s kingdom. It opens the gateway for the concerns and cares of God to enter your heart. God wants you to be an active participant in nurturing the kingdom.

How can you do that? Participate in creation care – the tending to and preserving of the earth and all its creatures for a long future. Practice compassion; God’s heart is filled with compassion for all people, and calls your heart to beat in the same way, no matter how different someone’s lifestyle is from your own.

God needs you to go out into the world rejoicing like the trees and the birds and the sea. Lean into the sun, feel the warmth of God in your heart. Let it spread to your fingers and toes. Reach out to our broken world so that all might come to know the true love that comes from God, the giver of hope and joy.

Sarah Briggs Amoth

Pray

God, let me be a light that warms the world with your love. Open my eyes to see your creation in its sorrow and joy. Let me sow your love into these places. Amen.

Go

I pray light will
Leak from our pockets
We’ll be drenched, overcome
At night the fireflies
Streamers at our sides
Silent flaming arcs of hope

All things will change
We wait for the rain
And the promise remains

from “Jacaranda Tree” by Josh Garrels (2008)