Stir into flame

Monday, January 26, 2026

Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Stir into flame

 I am grateful to God,

whom I worship with a clear conscience,

as I remember you constantly in my prayers,

night and day.

When Margaret and I don’t sustain that constancy of praying for each other and our marriage, it shows. In our emotions, in our words with each other, in the hopes and fears we have for the future, even our very digestion … it shows.

Nearly every day we listen to or read the lectionary and read this devotion. We sing a song, and pray together. A few years ago our pastor Matt challenged us to pray for each other, and we do. Our prayers turn our hearts toward Jesus, toward the Holy Spirit and away from our personal conflicts. This is a wonderful thing, as we begin to turn the corner into the second half of our 45th year of marriage.

I remind you to stir into flame

the gift of God that you have.

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice

but rather of power and love and self-control.

It seems to me that self-control is less accessible when I seek it alone. Much better to seek self-control alongside Margaret, to rest our mutual desire squarely on our Father’s shoulders, asking Him what in the world do we do now? Then we have a fighting chance … a peace-making chance.

Announce his salvation, day after day.

For a week Margaret has been in Austin while I’m in Urbana preparing to officiate weddings at the Danville Correctional Center on Wednesday. We welcome this alone-time, and we dread it too. We miss each other. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Our parallel lives provide us more reasons to pray together, but not necessarily more opportunity.

Tell his glory among all the peoples,

 and speak of his wondrous deeds.

(Info about the paintings)

We can (and do) pray out loud together for people in both our mental and physical neighborhoods.  I am thankful for the quiet confidence in God I feel inside when we do that. And I remember the Promise Keepers mantra: Pray every single day for each member of your family, out loud and in their presence. Again when I am forgetful of this, it, shows. Whether I feel it or not, the soil of my soul becomes hard, rocky and full of thorns, as Jesus describes in the next chapter of Mark:

Satan comes at once

and takes away the word sown in me,

and when I hear the word in joy,

I forget it the next day, because I have developed no roots.

Though I hear the word,

worldly anxiety and craving for all things

choke the word in me.

And it bears no fruit.

There is no respite from these temptations. No matter that we are 76, aging somewhat gracefully, gradually more free to present our consciences in confessional honesty before God. I need Margaret’s prayers and love, and she needs mine. Together we each bring ourselves more thoroughly to our Father.

The word sown in rich soil?

This soil is made from the ones who hear the word and accept it,

and who bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

(2 Samuel 1, Psalm 80, Acts 16, Mark 3)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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