And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him— speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
2 Peter 3:15-16

Dear God, I love how Peter talked about Paul in this passage. This could have been a very polarizing situation between them. Frankly, it shocks me that it wasn’t. And I don’t give Paul a lot of the credit, although maybe I should. I perceive him to be a little more difficult to like as an individual. But Peter believed in him. You had somehow assured him through your Holy Spirit that Paul was genuine in his representation of you. He definitely takes sides between Paul and Paul’s detractors and has harsh words for the detractors.

I sometimes wonder how all of this would play out in our modern time. Is there a reason you did all of this 2,000 years ago–just so we would have it in its current form now? Because I can’t imagine Jesus in this day and age with our current media and ability to communicate. Well, maybe I can. I can certainly see how he would have ended up being killed, but I see it more as an assassination by an organized group than I see it as a government execution. But then the follow-up and the formation of these letters that form the new Testament. Maybe that’s where the model breaks down.

But I digress. I want to think about Peter and his attitude a little more. As a disciple, he was formed in the company of 11 other close confidants of Jesus. He was admonished by Jesus himself for trying to elevate himself as more important than the others. He then had to oversee the persecution of his friends and himself. This could have developed a bitter, chip-on-the-shoulder, hardness to him, but instead it helped him to identify with Jesus and become more Christ-like all the more. And now he could see what you were accomplishing through Paul and he had Paul’s back.

Father, even today I am traveling with a coworker to check out another nonprofit like ours and learn from how they do some things we want to do. Help me to be humble. Help me to see what they do that would work well with our patients and then to be willing to hear your Holy Spirit and hear from you on ways we might improve on or change their work. Help me be what my coworker needs as she does the same thing. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Speak to us in a still, small voice and guide us in our discussions both in the car on the way there and back and then while we are there. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the patient from yesterday who needs your healing. We are doing some things for her medically, but she is going to need you if she is to be healed. Oh, Father, please heal her. Oh, Father, please be in this situation. Oh, Father, please touch every person’s life who touches hers. Make this pain count. Don’t let one thing about this be wasted. And show all of us who are helping her what to do.

I pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

Amen