February 29, 2024
Thursday, February 29, 2024:
Pause. Pray. Read. Be still. Write. Pray. Go about your day or turn in for the night.
Read: Matthew 5:9 Peacemakers
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
(Matthew 5:9, NRSVUE)
The For Sale sign planted in front of the church property foretold its fate. Michael Spurlock, a salesman-turned-priest, arrived with his family in Smyrna, Tennessee, to shutter its doors and sell the prime piece of acreage. The movie, “All Saints,” chronicles this true story.
Believing God spoke to him one evening, Father Michael set out to save the church instead by starting a farm on its acreage. He brought together his parishioners and an unlikely group of Asian refugees who knew how to farm. Together, they negotiated resources, tilled, planted, and watered the crops. One by one they won hearts in a divided community. All linked arms and functioned as one, each doing what they could.
Success looked imminent when disaster struck. Heavy rain poured down. The congregation, refugees, and even townspeople worked together through the night but could not save enough of the harvest to pay their mortgage. Father Michael’s young son, feeling the weight of defeat, asked, “Why would God tell you to plant a farm and then flood it?”
Father Michael responded, “I don’t know.” Yet, in his final sermon before the church closed, Father Michael commented, “Maybe it wasn’t about building the farm after all. It was about building community.”
Peacemakers build community. They build, not through force, but through the means of peace, or joining together around a shared vision through which all benefit and prosper. I wonder what the result would look like if today’s world leaders were peacemakers who worked together as one to build a world at peace.
Be still and Reflect: Where and how can you be a peacemaker within your family, friends, and local community?
Pray: Heavenly Father, I come before You with a grateful heart, acknowledging the blessedness of being called Your child through my faith in Christ. Grant me the wisdom, humility, and grace to be an instrument of peace. Help me to seek reconciliation, understanding, and harmony, just as You reconciled me to Yourself through Jesus. Raise up leaders among all nations who will let the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, reign in their hearts and flow through them into the lives of others. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
By His Grace,
Gloria