Prodigal: I have somewhere I need to be.

Me: We all do, but time together is always important.

This is from the book Voices of the Faithful by Beth Moore

Being new in the city of Jerusalem. I was culturally inept. Used to greeting people I met on the street, I quickly learned that many of my Orthodox Jewish neighbors wouldn’t greet me in return. Being a Gentile woman makes me unacceptable in a religious sense. While shopping in the Old City, a Muslim shopkeeper assisted me in a store. In completing the transaction, I thanked him and thoughtlessly extended my hand whereupon he solemnly explained that he was on his way to prayers and could not touch me.

Religiously, I am considered a contaminant to the people I live among. As I replayed these experiences in my mind, I saw my sinfulness in a fresh way. Yet new gratitude came for the Holy One. He is not defiled by me. Instead, in grace, He has actually imputed His own righteousness to me.

Several months after these experiences, my husband and I were walking when a man in Orthodox Jewish dress stopped us, asking if we loved God and knew how to pray. We affirmed our love for God, explaining that we pray to Him through Jesus the Messiah. He asked us to pray for him, saying that he needed to find peace with God. Finding a place where he wouldn’t risk being seen with us, we prayed for him. As we prayed, he reached out and held our hands.

Knowing one needs peace with God strips us of pride in the presence of each other and the One who died for us.

—A worker in Northern Africa and the Middle East.

Proverbs 20:3

It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org