April 30, 2018
In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Bob Henry writes about how children model for us what it is to make joy, peace, and love a reality, not just in our hearts, but in “our relationships, communities, and workplaces. If there is one thing children are able to do, it is to activate joy, peace, and love without much resistance. What a child’s heart feels and experiences is often immediately manifested in their actions and words.”
During a vacation Bible school at his meeting this year, Bob noted that children “befriended guests and included everyone. They shared uplifting qualities, encouraged, and cheered each other on. As they worked together on lessons and games, they embraced the theme of being created by God and built for a purpose.”
Do we have joy, peace, and love in our hearts? How do they affect our relationships? How do they show up in our interactions with our communities? How are they manifested through us in our workplaces?
Bob suggests that paying attention to children or thinking back on our own experiences of childhood might be helpful. The way “children interact is a great reminder of the importance of knowing what’s down in our hearts and allowing it to become observable in our outward lives.”
As adults, we have learned by experience to filter what we say and do, to be careful how we react or respond. And as adults, we are sometimes so busy that we lose touch with our hearts (not to mention our feelings).
Have joy, peace, and love “slipped too far away to tap?” Maybe what we need, according to Bob, is “a reminder for us to reengage, to seek again our Inner Light and respond to our world out of a deep sense of joy, peace and love.”
Eric Muhr
P.S. In this tenuous year of transition, Barclay Press must raise $25,000 in order to remain a going concern. So far this year, we’ve received $17,680 in donations and $3,300 in pledges, getting us almost 84 percent of the way to where we need to be by the end of the year. Thank you for your continuing prayer, for your words of encouragement, and for your support.
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