Back to School 
Pause
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)
My soul is the essence of who I am, my very being. It is the boundless, timeless, passionate part of me. It is my authentic spiritual self.
What does it mean to honor my authentic spiritual self today?
What does it mean to love God with my soul?
Listen
Instead, If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head. Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good.
Romans 12:20-21
Think
Only you have control of how you respond when someone hurts you. That’s one of life’s toughest lessons.
Yes, people can be mean. They can bully. They can hurt you. We see this in our schools on a day-to-day basis.
But you get to decide how you respond. And how you respond decides who you are.
Luckily, we have a bit of a recipe in today’s reading: respond with kindness, do not respond with the hate that was shown to you.
The only way to defeat evil is with good. Heaping piles of good.
Wendy Johnson
Pray
God, it is so difficult not to strike back when someone hurts me. Help me every day to remember that I get to decide who I am and how I act, and that no one can make me turn away from the love that God has shown me. Amen.
Go
Go and find that boundless, timeless, passionate part of yourself.
Go and be the person God is calling you to be.
