Thoughts for the Day

If you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Last year I was awarded second prize in one of the categories of the St Florence Potato Challenge. Since I have never won a prize for growing a vegetable or flower before, I was very pleased. I achieved something like 59 (or was it 49?) potatoes out of one single potato in a bucket. I kept it in the greenhouse near the open door and watered it at least every other day using a watering can. I did not feed it! Rather miraculously it did well. But this year I'm not doing the Potato Challenge, not in order to let someone else win it, but because my shoulders were made so painful from carrying the watering can!

In our reading today Isaiah says that when we carry out God's commands to care for others wherever they are, whether that is in Africa, Ukraine, or our own country, then we are like a watered garden, (or even a healthy potato plant!). When we love others and when we stay close to Him, then we too will flourish like a healthy plant.

Heavenly Father,
You have promised to guide us,
and to satisfy our needs,
when we listen to You;
when we confess our wrong doing;
and whenwe care for others
Help us remember this always.
Amen.