Living for what will abide
And bring us with your saints
To glory everlasting. Te Deum
Read Matthew 13:24—30
Every day I have lived — not a day I have ever lived has been without this — every day I have lived with weeds. With weeds that spoil the harvest, along with the good solid health-giving plump grain. Of course that is a picture of my own life if I dare to look into it; but it is also of the life around me if I dare to look out at it. By faith I know that God’s design is only for the good rich growth. God promises that in the kingdom. So the fact that my day has been this mixed day is a sign of God’s patience, his patience towards history and toward the times through which I live. But this is also for me a call. It is a call to discern. To discern the weeds that spoil, that will be destroyed. To choose. To discard certain things. To cultivate others. To cultivate what will not be destroyed in the kingdom. To cherish what speaks of God and God’s wholeness. And to persist in these things.
God of all time and of all history, you are the Lord of my time and of my story. You remain so, even though there is much in my story that looks like weeds. And there is much in the time I live in that does not look like the hand of God, rather the infiltration of the enemy. I believe and declare that you are working all things toward the Day of the Lord. Hidden things will be exposed. What works against you will fail. What you have already done in Christ Jesus to reconcile all things to your proper purpose will flourish. So receive from this day those things that tend toward your glory, and let them abide. Let them produce fruit. Bless this day’s conversations and relationships, even if they were a mixed bag. Let them be like seeds that die and rise up and flourish into new life.