Then Jesus went from village to village, teaching the people. ⁷ And he called his twelve disciples together and began sending them out two by two, giving them authority to cast out evil spirits. ⁸ He told them to take nothing for their journey except a walking stick—no food, no traveler’s bag, no money. ⁹ He allowed them to wear sandals but not to take a change of clothes.

¹⁰ “Wherever you go,” he said, “stay in the same house until you leave town. ¹¹ But if any place refuses to welcome you or listen to you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.”

Mark 6:6b-11

Dear God, there seem to be so many things happening around me that disappoint me. I don’t like how some things are unfolding in the culture. They concern me. And there is so very little I can do about them. That’s what I thought about this morning when I read this story. I would guess that if I had asked any of Jesus’s disciples or even Jesus himself how they felt about what they saw happening around them and unfolding in their culture, they would have been concerned too. So what did Jesus tell them to do? Go out and cast out demons and, I assume, preach repentance and reconciliation with God, although, ironically, they still did not even come close to grasping what all you had in mind through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

So here I am today. I have work to do. I have a job that needs me to be loving and compassionate. I have a friend who needs some comforting today. I have a wife who needs my love and support. I have children who need my prayer. I have these writing projects I’ve felt led to, wondering what exactly I’m supposed to do next.

Father, help me to not look to the world or the culture for my comfort or my peace. It’s okay to lament. It’s okay to see things and prayerfully take action. But you are my hope. You are the only thing that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You are the only thing in which I can rest. So I start this day just loving you. Appreciating you. Thanking you for the blessing my wife and I got yesterday and praying over it and what we are trying to pass to someone else through that blessing. Cover our actions, Father. Guide my wife and me. Care for our children, siblings, nieces, and nephews. My parents. Lord, be glorified in this earth.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen