Tuesday, July 22

By Julie Conway-Sword of Gainesville, Florida, USA

Collectively and individually, you are loved with an everlasting love that delights in each faithful step taken. God yearns to draw you close so that wounds may be healed, emptiness filled, and hope strengthened.

—Doctrine and Covenants 163:10a

With our faces pressed to the car windows, my two sisters and I watched each passing Iowa cornfield. On either side of the road, as we traveled southward from Minnesota to Iowa, maturing green cornstalks filled many fields. “How high are the cornstalks, Daddy?” We would ask, trying to compare to our own small bodies. “Are they knee high?”

“Knee high by the fourth of July,” we chanted, more for the rhyme and rhythm than from a child’s calculated understanding.

When we arrived at our relative’s home, there were exclamations, such as, “Look at you girls!” Chattering aunts, uncles, and grandparents grabbed, hugged, and measured us by comparison to our previous visits. “It doesn’t seem possible that you’ve grown so much!” they remarked repeatedly.

We measure corn and children in feet and inches, but what about our spiritual growth? How does the Divine picture us, God’s children? Section 163:10a tells us, “Collectively and individually, you are loved with an everlasting love that delights in each faithful step taken…” God sees and blesses each effort to follow Christ. How encouraging God is, cheering us on, drawing us “close” as we respond to Christ’s mission. Let us take faithful steps daily.

Prayer for Peace Creator God, we know you are with us on our journey, encouraging each step. Thank you for our companions on the way. May we encourage one another as we share Christ’s peace.

Spiritual Practice: Develop Disciples to Serve Read and reflect on Psalm 42:1–2. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to respond to people and their needs. The call to journey inward can restore us in times of physical or spiritual depletion.

Imagine you can feel a vessel at the center of your being (a clay jar, a crystal vase, a metal bucket, or other container). Imagine drawing something from the vessel to share with another person, but as you reach inside you find only a tiny pool of stagnant liquid. You are thirsty and dry, empty. Listen prayerfully again to the psalm, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

As you feel restored, thank God for the opportunity to be a responding, serving disciple while you move into the outward journey. Remember this exercise as you drink water throughout the day.

Peace Covenant Today, God, I will take the next step in my mission of service.