Dear fellow CL readers, 

Yes, I have been a bit out of touch. I just got back from several weeks in Kenya and Tanzania (where I got to spend several delightful days with fellow ConversantLife blogger Lisa Borden and her family). Now I'm back in California and catching my breath before heading to the east coast in ten days to host a conference in Virginia. Life during the fall is never boring, that's for sure.  

Months ago now I was asked to submit several devotions for a book being published by Moody, Daily Seeds From Women Who Walk in Faith (Melinda Schmidt, Anita Lustrea, & Lori Neff). That book came out this month, and here is one of the devotions I contributed. Enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by, Lisa

Philippians 1:9 – “And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best, and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” 

A few months ago visited Elmina castle, in Ghana. A whitewashed fortress perched on the West African coast, Elmina was the Portuguese and Dutch trading post that brokered slaves until the late 1800’s. As I stood on what used to be the Governor’s balcony I looked down upon the barred stone cells that used to hold hundreds of female slaves awaiting the transport ships. At the Governor’s pleasure the women used to be driven from these holding pens into the courtyard below to mill around until he had made his daily choice.

When I looked up I saw a church in the middle of the castle, built directly over the dungeons that used to house the male slaves. Inside that church, words from Psalm 132:14 are inscribed above the door; “This is my resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”

I stared, and imagined those times, and wanted to cry with rage and pain and shame. And fear. What modern blind spots or willful, apathetic, ignorance will goad future generations into similar paroxysms?

It is impossible to fully grasp, or care about, every single wrong that is happening in our world today. Yet this is my prayer, that we will not blithely be attending churches built over dungeons. And that each of us, in our own ways, will somehow be working to meet a need and right a wrong in a world that often feels too full of both.

Today, think about whether and how your love for God and others is abounding more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. What global or local wrongs – human trafficking, homelessness, a friend and neighbor enslaved by addiction or loneliness – is God bringing to your attention? Why?