Prayer: Providing Father, may what lies ahead be the best we ever tasted. Amen
Reading: John 2: 1-11 (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: While on vacation, I reread a book, Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. It was one of those books I read quickly once and at the end wished I had paid more attention to things along the way. The unfolding of the storyline lived up to the definition of a word in the title: manifest - verb - to reveal, to make known. Much was revealed throughout the story yet the reader (and main character) did not know it until the end. Here I am, still on vacation, getting started on a GROW Time devotion and this scripture happens to have been "quoted" in the book I just read. It goes like this: Shady held his hat in his hands, rotating it in a slow circle, "I don't spend much time in church, but I do recall a story my mother used to tell me. Some folks had a wedding and they ran out of wine. The bartenders brought out big jugs of water. But lo and behold, out poured wine, the best they ever tasted. ...Everyone nodded, waiting for the prayer... "All right, then." Shady cleared his throat and began what sounded more like a toast than a prayer. "Lord, here's hopin' what lies ahead is the best we ever tasted." Needless to say, to understand the context of this part of the story, you would have to read the whole book; maybe even twice like I did. But this is very clear: when Jesus gets involved, we have hope what lies ahead is the best ever. --Ruth Gates
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