Daily Devotion | August 11, 2021

Back to School

by Pastor Steph

We are definitely in the dog days of summer. T – minus two weeks before Fargo Public School begins, and for a mother of two tween girls, this is where the rubber hits the road. We have had our back to school lists for a few weeks now, and we have checked them twice. Backpacks are packed and ready to go. Notebooks, check. Pencils, check. Scissors, glue, and Clorox wipes, check. Believe it or not, the school supply aisle is the easy part. The back to school clothes shopping is not easy.  Apparently, I am too old to know the latest trends. To me, jeans are jeans, but not to my middle schooler. After trying on the tenth pair of “No, these aren’t right,” the sales associate came to my rescue and brought into the dressing room, a high waist, wide leg, white wash denim that checked the style box mom just didn’t understand. We bought the jeans and called it a day. We were tired of checking boxes.

On the way home, I thought about the tears in the dressing room, the eye rolls, and the frustration of trying to check the box of fitting in. It’s not easy as a kid, or as an adult to find your fit. Not just your style, but your place in this world. It’s not easy to find your fit. I wonder though, how is it, that we as the people of God, have become so conditioned to fit in, when we were created to stand out? God calls God’s people to be set apart people. I Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people set apart so that you may proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called you out of darkness into light.” If you and I are created to be set apart, why do we work so hard to fit in? After all, it’s not about checking the boxes, but rather clothing ourselves in Christ. Putting on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. It is about wearing forgiveness, and peace and dressing in a trend that never goes out of style. “For above all,” the Apostle Paul writes, “clothe yourselves in love, which stitches everything together in perfect harmony.”

As a new school year begins, please join me in praying for our students, teachers, staff, and administrators to be clothed in love. May our prayers shine light on the one whom we choose to wear.

-- Pastor Steph

 

 

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