READ: John 11:32-37

Jesus wept. (v. 35)

We were designed by God to live in community with others. This community reflects the nature of a triune God. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). When God’s Son, the second person of the Trinity, came to earth as a man, Luke 2:52 reveals that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” Earthly relationships can bring us love, companionship, support, and friendship. Healthy and God-honoring relationships are blessings from our Creator.

The end of an earthly relationship brings grief and pain. The death of a spouse, parent, or child separates us from someone we dearly love. The end of a dating relationship or a divorce brings a variety of emotions and loss. Sometimes an earthly relationship doesn’t end, but it changes. A move, job termination, change of church family, or the relocation of a kind neighbor can cause us to feel empty and alone.

When he encountered the sting of death, Jesus wept (John 11:35). At the death of his father, Jacob, Joseph wept (Gen. 50:1). When his life was in jeopardy from Saul and required his separation from Jonathan, David wept (1 Sam. 20:41). Likewise, most of us have or will grieve the end of an earthly relationship. In the midst of the grief, we hold on to the words of Jesus to Martha in John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (NIV).

PRAYER

Wonderful Counselor, comfort us when we grieve. Amen.

Read: Job 1:1-22

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. (v.21)

The opening lines of Job 1 portray a righteous man blessed by God. Job’s reverence for God led him to occasionally sacrifice an offering to God on behalf of his children in case they had sinner against God in their hearts. By the close of the chapter, Job sits with torn robe and shaved head, having experienced multiple losses. The abundance of oxen, donkeys, and sheep, and the lives of servants sons, and daughters were tragically gone. Imagine the future dreams and aspirations of Job that suddenly came to an end.

We experience the end of dreams, too. Our hopes and plans can be changed in an instant. Unfilled hopes can quickly lead to sorrow, depression, and pain. Hopes and dreams often motivate us to keep pressing on. When times are tough, we set goals and establish future hopes to pursue. In a fallen world, goals and future hopes are not always realized.

What then? Do you give up, curse God, fault yourself or others, live with bitterness? Somehow Job refrained from sin, refused to blame God, and fell to the ground in worship. HIs faith had the capacity to trust God even with endings that did not make sense. Many of his questions remained unanswered. Yet even as he grieved, he kept hoping and trusting in his Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer (Job 19:25).

Prayer:

Loving Lord, when my earthly dreams and hopes fall short, help me to trust in your divine and eternal plan for my life. Amen.

Author: Steve Petroelje

Read: Genesis 3:1-24

Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden. (v. 23)

Sin turns beginnings into endings. Sin brought an end to the wonderful relationship Adam and Eve enjoyed with God, replacing it with shame and guilt. Sin and selfishness damage earthly relationships, cause people to lose their freedom for crimes they have committed, or bring an end to unity in a church. Since we now live in a sinful world, we face the realities of sickness, terrorism, falsehood, violence, theft, and death. These bring an end to good gifts from God such as health, freedom, peace, and life. No matter if it’s the sin of others, our own sin, or just part of living in a sin-tainted world, sin can be the beginning of an end.

Adam and Eve’s sinful disobedience ended the beautiful and pure life in the garden. Our first parents are to blame, but as their descendants let’s also look in the mirror and see the sin in our own lives. Although we have inherited a sinful nature, each of us also sins against God individually through wrong thoughts, words, and actions. Our own sin damages things that have started well and leads to painful endings.

How has your sin led to a painful ending in your life? How has it negatively affected others? As we will see in tomorrow’s devotional, there is hope for us in Jesus Christ! Our guilt and shame can come to an end!

Prayer:

God of grace, forgive me of the sins I’ve committed, sins that have led to brokenness and premature endings. Amen.

Author: Steve Petroelje

Read: Psalm 31

My times are in your hand. (v. 15)

Psalm 31 expresses the same tumble of emotions that I’ve often seen in prisoners: despair, outrage, fear, shame, wounded pride, desire for vindication. The psalmist was wasting away, ignored by friends, and beset by enemies. As is often true in the Psalms, the writer’s staccato declarations of faith sound like efforts at self-reassurance more than calm, settled affirmations. It’s easy to imagine these words being gasped out between cries of pain. Indeed, Jesus, the most wrongfully convicted person in history, does exactly that from the cross (Luke 23:46).

We started this series with the question, what does it mean for a free person to remember those in prison as though she or he were one of them? How do we enter into that experience with our hearts and imaginations? Well, we can realize their predicament when we remember the emotions expressed in Psalm 31—when we remember our own sleepless nights, our own creeping terror of mortality, our own fear of losing reputation or livelihood. But Psalm 31 also reminds everyone, imprisoned or not, that our times are never truly stolen. Enemies may come after us—false accusers, a blundering government, or, yes, criminals themselves—but our times, our lives, are in the Lord’s hands. They have never been anywhere else. And they are safe there.

Prayer:

Lord, remind all of us that the one who really is in control is the one who loved us enough to die on a cross. Psalm 31

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Matthew 25:31-46

Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? (vv. 37-39)

I used to find Matthew 25 terrifying because I focused on the “eternal fire” with which Jesus threatens those who don’t do the required works of charity (vv. 41-43). I worried all the usual childish worries—that there was a quota of good deeds that had to be reached to avoid damnation, and that I wouldn’t meet it.

I now find Matthew 25 comforting because Jesus’ teaching makes the spiritual life, which can seem so complicated, starkly simple. I worry about how to find Jesus all the time—how to pray, how to meditate, what sort of inner promptings I should be listening for—but this passage tells me exactly where he is. Simply go to the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned. I may not know whether I’m praying “right” or how to “hear” God, but these words have proved reliable. Every time I’ve sought out prisoners—not to evangelize or “improve” them, but simply to be kindly present with as open a heart as I can manage—he’s been there. In their goodness, their intelligence, their lack of pretension, even in their obstreperousness that forces me to find deeper reserves of love to handle their response, prisoners have shown me Jesus. He said that’s where he’d be. And he is.

Prayer:

Lord, give us courage to go where you are.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Colossians 1:15-23

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities . . . (v. 16)

Governments do a lot of good. Today I mailed a letter, which will be delivered courtesy of my government. I also deposited my paycheck, which is only worth anything because my government backs the currency and enforces the contracts between my employers, my bank, and me. But governments also destroy people. Time and again, I have met prisoners who were deeply convinced, not only that they committed a crime for which they must repent, but that they were subhuman garbage, unworthy of decent treatment. They learned this from the government that houses them, that wields godlike power over their moment-to-moment existence, and that, often enough, turns a blind eye when they are abused, raped, or exploited while incarcerated.

The Rome that held Paul captive was an empire of unprecedented power in the ancient world. For Paul, a prisoner, to remember and assert that it existed for Christ, the Word by whom and for whom all things were created, was utterly radical. Jesus reminds us of the state’s true size. It is subordinate to him; it exists to glorify him. When the state stops doing so—when, for example, it abuses the image of God, including those images of God who live in prison—Christians have a duty to push back.

Prayer:

Lord, for our sake you became a prisoner. Needle our conscience until we demand prison conditions not wholly unfit for you.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Colossians 1:15-23

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities . . . (v. 16)

I have always loved Colossians, a book of great grandeur and hope. Yet this book is a prison epistle, written—like Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon—by a man under house arrest.

House arrest is still common in the United States. As I reread today’s passage, I thought immediately of my friend Tom, a Christian who struggled with addiction and did time on a nonviolent offense. After parole, Tom was on a “tether”—under house arrest with electronic monitoring.

Although it may be better than living in prison, prisoners under house arrest, like all prisoners, still carry a heavy load of fear. The consequences of this fear can be disastrous. One night my friend Tom’s tether malfunctioned. His fear of going back to prison for violating his parole—a very legitimate fear, as parole officers often refuse to accept a prisoner’s word when these devices break—was so extreme that he took his life.

Life can be exceedingly cruel, and I don’t judge Christians who temporarily forget where their true home is. But that home is real nonetheless. When he wrote these words, Paul’s body was considered the property of the state, and he had been locked up in a “domain of darkness.” But he knows himself to be transferred already to Jesus’ kingdom. Such confidence is already a miracle, and the God who gave it can give you, and me, and Tom, so much more.

Prayer:

Lord, make us mindful of our true home.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 28

They said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer.” (v. 4)

Paul showed up in Rome after many adventures, only to find that local religious authorities hadn’t even heard of the controversy surrounding him. Acts closes with Paul under house arrest. But first, a short episode (vv. 1-11) shows us a deep-seated pattern in human behavior, and also the Bible’s characteristic response to that pattern.

The kindly Maltese were probably already inclined to believe that Paul, like the other prisoners who had washed ashore with him, was potentially dangerous. When a snake attacked Paul, it seemed to confirm their suspicions. We want to believe that “bad” people “get what they deserve.” Then when Paul shook off any fatal effect, the islanders deified him. This is the other side of the coin: we are always quick to believe in the supernatural goodness of those who defy misfortune. Both responses come from our desire to think both good and bad outcomes can be controlled by our behavior. By showing these assumptions being applied to a man who had constantly flung attention away from himself and onto his Lord, and who once called himself the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), the text points up their absurdity.

Like the islanders, we tend to view prisoners either as threatening evildoers or mistreated innocents. What they are is people, windblown and beaten by life, whom God has called us to visit in their distress.

Prayer:

Lord, make us willing to befriend the needy, even when they bear the stigma of guilt.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 27:1-26

But we must run aground on some island. (v. 26)

We can read the story of Paul in Acts as that of a man going from one beating and imprisonment to another. We can also read it as a story of a man going from one vision to another. Through a vision Paul was converted to Christ (Acts 9:1-31), sent to preach in Macedonia (16:9-10), encouraged to continue teaching God’s Word in Corinth (Acts 18:9-10), prepared for this very trip to testify in Rome about Jesus (23:11), and given courage to help everyone survive shipwreck (26:21-25). Paul was often accosted in the course of his work by a vision that strengthened, clarified, or transformed his sense of vocation, most dramatically when he first learned that he had been persecuting the followers of the God he meant to serve, and was converted to faith in Christ. These visions always came to Paul when he was already at work, already trying to obey.

We sometimes confuse God’s providence with freedom from danger. Reality is often closer to Paul’s experience: we lose the ship. We lose mobility, the ability to plan, the semblance of control. We are placed at the mercy of God—which is where we always already were.

Some sort of loss of control, of mobility, comes to us all. When you make the choice, as a Christian, to remember and identify with those in prison, it often comes quickly indeed. May we face it as Paul did.

Prayer:

Lord, when life wrecks us, help us remember that we’re your wrecks.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 26:19-32

This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. (v. 32)

Both prisoners and those who try to remember and love them get used to one thing: bureaucratic uncertainty. Think of that listless feeling you have when you’re between jobs, the sense that you don’t know what you ought to be doing with yourself. Being in legal limbo is similar, except that the confusion spreads to every area of your identity. Should I act as a free person? Should I make plans or establish relationships? What do I tell my kid about her next birthday?

Paul shows us how to deal with such far-reaching uncertainty: he stayed anchored in his vocation as a Christian. He gave a speech of such fiery persuasive power that Agrippa had to brush off Paul’s direct challenge to become a Christian with an ironical question (v. 28). In reply Paul appealed, once again, to his rights as a Roman citizen and intentionally exposed himself to the dangers of transportation in custody. (I think here of some prisoners I’ve known who, in being moved to another facility for medical or other reasons, have lost all their few possessions or been exposed to dangerous conditions.) What allowed Paul to do all this was that he faithfully remembered his job as a witness to the risen Christ—a job that all Christians share. When this anchors us, nothing, not even legal limbo, can shake us.

Prayer:

Lord, wherever we are, help us stay anchored in our real job, which is to love you so much that it draws others to you.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 26:1-18

I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. (v. 9)

Paul never stopped hoping for his release, even as he is bounced from corrupt Felix to feckless Festus and then from Festus to visiting dignitary Agrippa. Paul’s speech of self-defense before Agrippa clearly shows the causal connection between the account of his life, conversion, and subsequent ministry. As we’ll see tomorrow, even Agrippa was not immune to its power.

What strikes me about the speech, though, is its great humility. In verses 8-11, Paul lists those features of his own past that made him almost exactly like his accusers. Out of misguided zeal he too locked Christians up in prison, voted to give them the death penalty, and attacked others in the synagogues. Paul also “persecuted them even in foreign cities”—like the city in which Paul was making this very speech.

Self-righteousness is a continuing temptation for every Christian. It’s especially tempting for the unjustly accused, as Paul was. Paul’s example reminds us how it’s best avoided: by remembering and owning up to your own personal worst. Only when we remember the criminality of our own hearts can we remember and love wrongdoers without condescension.

Prayer:

Lord, you are absolute, but human innocence is relative. Help us to remember that we have all sinned, and that you want for all the same deliverance you gave to Paul on the Damascus road.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 16:25-27

And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. (v. 26)

In my work with prisoners, I’ve met people locked up, like Paul, unjustly. I’ve met wrongdoers who were themselves the victims of greater wrongdoing, whether by parents, abusive husbands, systemic racism, or other prisoners. A few times (less often than TV would have you believe) I have met people in bondage to real evil, people who actively and habitually identified with their worst impulses—but that’s still bondage, perhaps the worst kind. The one thing I have in common with all these people is that I am a sinner. I too need deliverance.

When I think of these things, I find myself growing frustrated with biblical miracle accounts, such as the one we read today. If God rescued Paul and his cellmates in this dramatic fashion, why won’t he do likewise for me and you? We have no answer for this question except the knowledge that our Savior suffers with us. But as for this miracle, it’s no easy delivery. Paul was saved from imprisonment only to take up again a life of inconvenience, rootlessness, exile, intermittent torture, and further imprisonment. He did so because he knew and loved Christ Jesus, a person whom this miracle, like all miracles, reveals to us. Christ is the one who, in his own time, unfastens all the bonds.

Prayer:

Lord, every one of us needs to be freed from something. Show us how you are already accomplishing our freedom, and direct us to your liberating work in the lives of those around us.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Acts 16:16-24

These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. (v. 20)

It’s hard for people who have never been there to “remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them” (Heb. 13:3). Thankfully, the Bible shows us how—most of all through Paul, who did his share of time. We’ll examine his story over the next several days.

Paul’s first bit happens in Philippi, a financial capital originally founded to help King Philip II of Macedon control the nearby gold mines. Wealthy cities are naturally obsessed with predicting the future. Today, we have market forecasters on Wall Street; in Paul’s day, they had soothsayers—such as the slave girl who clamorously followed Paul and his companions around until he finally cast the fortune-telling spirit out of her.

When Paul exorcised the slave girl, he ruined a sound business plan. The young woman’s exploiters reacted accordingly. They had Paul beaten and jailed on the charge that he was, in effect, a weirdo, an ethnic outsider who upset the order. We still jail people for being not so much harmful as outside some norm. Think, for example, of the undiagnosed mentally ill, nonviolent addicts, or the black man who was arrested on a charge of “obstructing pedestrian traffic”—for standing in his own doorway. By preserving this moment in Paul’s story, the Holy Spirit reminds us that we as Christians shouldn’t fit too smoothly into the order of things, either.

Prayer:

Lord, remember and defend those who mean well, but don’t fit in.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Hebrews 13:3

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them.

Like all the epistles, the letter to the Hebrews is best read as a letter. It’s urgent, practical, sometimes abrupt, written thoughtfully but in haste to spiritually needy people. It’s like the other epistles, too, in that it includes at least one terrifyingly hard command: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them.” Prisoners need to be as real, as immediate to the rest of us as our breakfasts and shoes, as ourselves. How can we manage that?

When my wife was fifteen, her father went to prison. Like many prisoners’ family members, she struggled to stay tangibly present in his life and vice versa. One thing she did was to write to him almost every weekday for 20 years, till his release. Nothing fancy—just a quick rundown of her day, her thoughts and feelings, a reminder that she loved him.

There are many ways to remember those in prison: friendship, intercessory prayer, post-release support, and advocacy for better conditions and for communities mistreated by the justice system. Though my wife and I have done all these things at various times, our journey started with those humble letters from my wife to her father. They preserved her love and his sanity. And they reminded me that even the Bible’s most difficult-sounding commands can be obeyed, with a little will and imagination.

Prayer:

Lord, you were a prisoner once. Comfort all prisoners with your presence, and remind us to seek you among those in prison.

Author: Phil Christman

https://woh.org/

Read: Matthew 13:34-35, 51-52

Have you understood all these things? (v. 51)

The last of George Herbert’s pen pictures is the simplest of all, yet it is as unexpected and as thought-provoking as any. The experience he writes of here is not one that our prayer answering God will give us every time; but as we get to know him better, we may find it happens increasingly often.

Here is the problem: if prayer is “something understood,” why do so many Bible people say to God in bewilderment, “But Lord, I don’t understand”? Here is the answer: they are being trained to trust where they cannot see; to trust that behind the scenes he has everything under control, and is working his purposes out in a way that they can’t yet grasp, but which will turn out to be the best of all ways.

And here is a quote, plus the concluding prayer, from just one more of Herbert’s fellow poets, Richard Trench (another archbishop, like yesterday’s Robert Leighton!). He writes of the times when we kneel to pray in a fog of not-understanding, and then somehow, rising from our knees, we find that “all, the distant and the near, / Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear; / We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power!” We may not know the answer, but we know the Answer Man.

Here is the poem in its entirety:

Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Something Understood →