Day 17: Monday 3/9

READ: James 4:7-10 

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will run away from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Cry out in sorrow, mourn, and weep! Let your laughter become mourning and your joy become sadness. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

REFLECT 

James shows us the way out: submit to God, resist what pulls us away from God, draw near. This is a reordering of our lives. To submit to God is to acknowledge God as Lord of our life. To resist the devil is to refuse the patterns that deform us — pride, self-protection, the quiet ways we fail to love.

James calls us to honesty about what’s in us. To grieve what needs grieving. To name where we’ve lived divided lives. Not to shame us, but to make us whole. And the promise is simple: when we draw near to God, God draws near to us.

RESPOND 

What do you need to acknowledge and grieve today? Mourn it before God and ask for a way forward.

PRAY 

God who lifts up the humble, we humble ourselves before you. Wash us, purify us, make us undivided in our loyalty to you. Amen.