Thursday - may peace reside

Prayer:  O LORD  may peace reside in our homes and churches and governments this day.    As we journey through our lives,  help us to be peace bearers in Your name.  Amen.

Read St. Luke 18: 31 - 34

Jesus and the disciples were heading up to Jerusalem.    As they journeyed,  they would be repeating the travelling Psalms  for Worship.       They were going to the Temple to Worship.   

Yet the death and resurrection of Jesus was hidden from the disciples understanding.    To the disciples,  this was a time in preparation for a Holy Festival,  not the death of their friend.   Perhaps they thought Jesus would be the political messiah to rescue them from the tyranny of the Romans.      But for now,  they worship together by singing the psalms.

While we know the rest of the story – death to resurrection,  let us join with the disciples in reflecting  and meditating upon Psalm 121.   This Psalm was one of many that was used on the journey to the Temple in Jerusalem.  

Psalm 121

Assurance of God’s Protection

A Song of Ascents.

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.    Amen.

(www.biblegateway.com   New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.)