Prayer: Dear God, help us to live in harmonious unity. Amen
Reading: Psalm 133 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: This is how I write a devotion: I read the assigned text over and over and then let it settle into my heart and mind for a bit until I hear a message to be shared. This can take minutes or it can take days. The Spirit speaks and I begin to write. Psalm 133 is short and sweet, just 3 verses. The first verse is the one I latched onto and pondered: How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity. The only problem is, over time I mistakenly began reciting the verse to myself as: How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in harmony. I came up with a wonderful reflection about harmony only to sit down back with the Bible and realize I was thinking the wrong word! But I believe this can still work. In music, there is unison singing with everyone singing the same tune at the same time perhaps only different in which octave; the basses low and the sopranos high. It is a unity of all voices on the same notes. Just as when God's people live in unity, it is good and pleasant. Harmony singing, on the other hand, is different people singing different notes at the same time to create the music. Still, the voices need to be united on their own right notes at the right time together. Sometimes there may be discordant harmonies but those usually resolve back to a nicer sound. Harmony is also good and pleasant. We are called to live in unity doing the same thing: loving God and loving others. However, we are each unique with different gifts and so we also live in harmony doing the same thing but perhaps in different ways. There may be discord amongst us but the hope is to resolve problems to once again live in unity in our harmonies. Harmonious unity! How good and pleasant that is! --Ruth Gates, Camp Mount Luther Family Camper
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