Listen

“I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.”

John 13:34-35

Think

In Exodus 20, we read that God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai and gave him The Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord your God… You must have no other gods before me… Do not use the Lord your God’s name as if it were of no significance… Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy… Honor your father and your mother… Do not kill… Do not commit adultery… Do not steal… Do not testify falsely against you neighbor… Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s house.”

Over a thousand years later, Jesus gave us a new commandment. Love each other “just as I have loved you.” Jesus loved us so much he died on the cross for us, so this commandment might require some compromise, even sacrifice in our own lives. I’m not saying go and make a martyr of yourself. However, as a wise man once tweeted, “Some changes look negative on the surface but… space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”

Alex Flannagan

Pray

Holy God, you have spoken to us through your prophets. Help me to follow your laws and guidance, knowing that you have in mind what is best for me.

May I remember that you are always creating space in my life for something new to emerge. Thank you, Lord.

Amen.

Go

“There’s a season for everything… a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted… a time for tearing down and a time for building up, a time for crying and a time for laughing… ” (Ecclesiastes 3)

Practice faith. It helps us make it through the seasons.

And as the cycles pass, remember that each ending is, in its own way, the beginning of something new.

Blessings.