Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.”
Psalm 122:6-7 (NIV)
The further I progress in this life journey the more I am aware of spiritual conflict that constantly boils below the surface of our physical reality. Jerusalem is a spiritual epicenter. The lyrics of the ancient songwriter of today’s chapter were prescient as they plead for the hearer to pray for peace in the city. As I walked the compacted streets of the old city some 25 centuries later, I could feel the spiritual tension that still exists there.
“I don’t like Jerusalem,” my guide from Nazareth said one day as we stood waiting for a friend in our party.
“Really?” I asked with curiosity. For not liking the city, he obviously spent a lot of time there.
“It is a spiritually dark place,” he responded quietly.
Even Jesus lamented it: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”
This morning I am thinking about spiritual realities, largely invisible to physical senses, which nonetheless exist and frame our lives. I find it fascinating that the older I get I feel my physical senses waning (“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”), but I find my spiritual senses growing more acute.
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