Devotion for Tuesday, March 24, The Fourth Week in Lent
2 Timothy 7 | For God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but a spirit of love, and of power and of self-discipline.
There is a lot of moral talk these days. Lots of recommendations about how we need to care for each other, how we must work together to survive. It’s all true. It always has been true. The question is, what motivates people to change their behavior? Fear works for a while, it always did. When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, the Canaanites fled or died. After I saw the new Hitchcock movie, “The Birds,” at 8-years-old, I was terrified of birds for the rest of my life.
Yet fear never changed a heart, never birthed a creative risk, never finally changed a family dynamic or a society or a culture. Fear narrows the view.
It is faith, not fear, that Jesus taught us. Faith has the power to change a heart (any heart), change a family (any family), a society (any society). Jesus said: “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the Glory of God?”
In 1980 I lived on a Christian commune in the south of France (no kidding). We fed and housed anyone who came by and we cooked all the meals together. My friend Anne said to me one day, “This many people cooking in a kitchen together without killing each other is a sign of Jesus.” I was convinced. I am still today.
PRAYER
Oh, dear God, save me from the fear and moralism of these days.
Let me see the Glory of God spring forth from faith in your every present love for us all.