Verse of the Day for June 22

Jesus tells his friends that they are about to fail him. ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone. Within hours it happens exactly as he said.

Then, without a pause, he speaks of peace. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. He is giving them words to come back to after they have run. The peace was prepared before the failure.

And he uses a surprising tense. I have overcome the world. Not I will. He says it before Gethsemane and before the cross, as if it were already done. For him, it was settled.

Beginning again is one of the hardest kinds of courage. You failed someone, or you walked away from God, or you made the same mistake for the hundredth time. Shame tells you to stay scattered. Jesus saw the scattering coming and still said be of good cheer.

If you need to start over today, you do not start from nothing. You start from words he spoke to you before you fell. Open your Bible where you left off, or kneel by the bed you got out of without praying, and begin again.

Jesus prepared the way back before his friends had even left.

You can begin again from what he said, not from what you did.