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Prayer: O God, the light of every day reminds us of your gracious creation. May that light also remind us of the new light which has come into your world, Jesus your Son.  May that new light illumine our thoughts, words and deeds this day and each succeeding day.  Amen

Whatever led Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon to look for a fountain of youth in the swamps of Florida? He died a bitterly disillusioned man, never realizing that the renewal of life was available to him in any village church in his own land. Had the poor man not heard Jesus’ promise from the last book of the Bible. “… I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life?”  

It had been there for him all the time!

Currently I am reading, off and on, two books. Citing passages from each of them, I wish for the reader to possibly utilize the variety of Bible verses that are listed.

From the book by Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents:”

On a packed commuter train in Portland, Oregon, a white man, hurling racial and anti-Muslim epithets, attacked two teenage girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab. “Get the (expletive) out,” he ranted.  “We need Americans here.”

When three white men rose to the girls’ defense, the attacker stabbed one of the men for doing so.   “I’m a patriot,” the attacker told the police en route to jail,” “and I hope everyone I stabbed died.”  Tragically, two of the men did not survive their wounds.  (page 8)

Referring to past European history, when many wounds have healed and often forgiveness has been granted, we may be reminded of a passage by one, who was for years, a professor in British Universities. 

He was a brilliant Christian writer, who wrote books of his own personal faith, and analyses of world literature. C.S. Lewis, in his book, “Mere Christianity,” has written of armed forces in Germany, a nation led to war by demonic passions. His rendering is that “perhaps, at first they mis-treated the Jews because they hated them; afterwards they hated them much more because they had mis-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more cruel you will become — and so on in a vicious cycle forever. Good and evil both increase at compound interest.”  (page 117)

The “forever” that Lewis identifies, is not necessarily forever. The world’s religions have various terms that indicate redemption. There is, in this world, that term spiritual leaders point to what pivots, reverses and creates new forces that can break the bonds of destruction. 

Turning to a listing of Bible verses, we may gain insights into new and redeeming possibilities:   when:     

Afraid

Psalm 32:7

Psalm 34:4

Psalm 112:7-8

Facing a Crisis

Psalm 21

Matthew 6:25-34

Hebrews 4:16

Agitated

John 14:27

Philippians 4:6-7

Faith Fails

Psalm 42:5

Hebrews 11

Angry

Ephesians 4:26-27

James 1:19-20

Guilty

Isaiah 1:18

Isaiah 44:22

Bereaved

Matthew 5:4

1 Corinthians 15

Revelation 21-22

In Trouble

Psalm 16

Psalm 31

John 14: 1-4

Bitter/Critical

1 Corinthians 13

Insecure

Isaiah 41: 1-13

Romans 8: 31-32

Conscious of Sin

1 John 1:9

Defeat

Romans 8:31-39

1 John 1:1-9

Depressed

Psalm 34

Psalm 40: 1-3

Discouraged

Deuteronomy 31:6

Psalm 23

Need Peace

John 14 1-4

John 16:33

Romans 5: 1-5

Sick/Pain

Psalm 34:19

Psalm 38

Mark 14:36

Need Rules for Living

Matthew 5:48

Matthew 22:36-40

Romans 12

Sorrowful

Psalms 51

Matthew 5:4

John 14

Persecuted

Matthew 5:10-12

Matthew 5:44-45

Suffering

Psalm 34:18-19

1 Corinthians 15:51-55

Protected

Psalm 18: 1-3

Psalm 34:7

Tempted

Psalm 1

Psalm 139:23-24

Weary

Psalm 90

Isaiah 40-31

Worried

Isaiah 26:3-4

Matthew 6:19-34