January 14

Genesis 28: 15 a

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Meditation”: What an amazing promise! If only the refugees of our time could hear this. Many of them left destroyed homes, cities and they lost family members. Or does this only mean Israel? Back then it did. What about today? What after Jesus opened up the ancient promises to the rest of the world?

God’s words of commitment and of love in today’s world of terror, fear and uprooting:

“I will keep you, and comfort you as one’s mother comforts.”

“I will bring you back. I honor your need for a home.”

“I will not leave you. Even if your identity of country, of language and tradition get lost, you will not lose your identity with me.”

“I will do what I promised you. I am trustworthy and faithful.”

Prayer: Loving God, come into our places of up rootedness. Come into our restlessness and our feelings of losing our mind and our identity. Come into our fleeing and into our uncertainty of where we will land.  Amen

Quote: “Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest me, O God, I am Thine.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer