Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“… bearing with one another in love. ”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, September 15, 2022
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to see how farmers once ploughed fields with beasts of burden, you will understand that a yoke (or harness) bears its full force into the animal as it pushes across the untilled earth.
Dealing with other people can sometimes seem exactly as much work as a team of draft horses sweating their way across a field, laboring in the hot sun. To bear another’s presence isn’t always easy, especially when the person grates on your nerves.
As followers of Jesus, God gives us the wisdom to view the task of bearing with (and for) each other in another light: we can bear each other’s burdens in love. This love isn’t a feeling or an emotion, although often positive sentiments can arise out of the situation. The love of Christ radiates continually for all people and in all relationships. Sometimes, we ignore God’s presence though and our relationships with each other suffer. Bearing another person’s presence (and their burdens) starts with plain work — it sometimes takes a concerted effort to allow another person to just be. But know, too, that God works in us by giving us the Son.
Gentle God, you maintain the unity in your Spirit through Jesus; work in me to bear others’ burdens in Christ’s love. Amen.
![Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10 [4:1-11], Jonah and God’s Mercy](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/6bbb490e-4992-4659-a8be-02d8397d68af/24-11-10.jpg)
