Daily Devotion

Wednesday, March 4, 2026  

Today's Scripture
Luke 15:32

We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.

One of the features of the toddler stage of childhood is that you often lose a beloved toy that, once having been lost, is also lost to your mind until it reappears many months, if not years, later. But for many of us, there are other things that we lose that dig a hole that can never be filled. The loss of a parent or friend is one variety. We feel their absence, and the very absence itself becomes a kind of canyon carved out of the heart.

I think it’s fitting, if not peculiar, that this passage of scripture, taken from the story of the prodigal son, connects life to being found. Life is tied to communion or community with others. Life is belonging. Scholar Willie Jennings tells us that one of the deep tragedies of the Atlantic slave trade is that it began a process of uprooting people, Africans and Native Americans in particular, from their sense of place. Now our sense of place can also feel like a burden if someone else determines solely what that place is, but if we are allowed in some sense to willingly inhabit the place where we are, then being rooted is a kind of freedom and life.

How can we be a place, a church community, that provides such a sense of life and belonging? To be such a community is to say that all of us are now that much more alive because of our neighbor’s presence.

Prayer

God, who makes the invisible seen, thank you for seeking us. Help us to seek each other with compassion, hope, and love. Amen.

Written by Joseph L. Morrow, Associate Pastor

Reflection and prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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