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Morning Devotion for the Season of Advent
December 16, 2024
Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Meditation - Glenn Beamer
When I read Paul’s letters in the New Testament, I perceive his suggestions and admonitions coming from an energetic, confident disciple of Christ. But the reading from Philippians strikes me as measured & humble. Paul’s recommendation, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” comes across as thoughtful and calming – a call to the Peace of Christ. By relieving our anxiety and becoming gentle we can create new spaces in which God can work through us and transcend our toughness. We become the vessel through which Christ’s most powerful love, redemptive love, can occur.
In the aftermath of World War II, Europe and Asia faced catastrophic food shortages in which millions of people risked starvation. President Harry Truman, a New Deal Democrat, wrote and invited President Herbert Hoover, the Republican who had presided over the Great Depression, to the White House to discuss famine relief. Expecting no political benefit, Truman’s advisers had discouraged him from reaching out to Hoover. Hoover had long felt himself a pariah in Washington and public service.
Truman circumvented his staff, and Hoover came to the White House in 1945. Truman asked Hoover to serve as Honorary Chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee (FEC), Upon hearing Truman’s request, tears welled in Hoover’s eyes; he briefly excused himself from the oval office and then accepted whole heartedly the position. Harry Truman had set aside hard ball politics, and let his gentleness be evident. By relinquishing control to God, Truman created the transcendent space in which redemptive love occurred.
As the FEC Chairman, Herbert Hoover, then 71 years-old, traveled over 50,000 miles to thirty-eight nations. Years later, Hoover wrote to Truman, “Yours has been friendship which has reached deeper into my life than you know.”
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