^“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7, NLT).

              The Kombo Loi, or worry beads became popular during the middle part of the twentieth century. The origins of the Kombo Loi date back to the time when Grecian monks lived on Mount Athos. They began making strands of beads by tying knots on a string at regular intervals as they offered their prayers to God.

“The Lord gave these instructions to Moses: “Command the people of Israel to remove from the camp anyone who has a skin disease or a discharge, or who has become ceremonially unclean by touching a dead person” (Numbers 5:1-2, NLT).

            This command is a foreign concept to many of us. The idea that a person can become “ceremonially unclean” as a consequence of a skin disease or by touching a corpse seems antiquated. Yet such was once a prevalent understanding within Judaism.

“He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him.  He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?  How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So, it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other” (Matthew 12:9-13, NRSV).

            I love the opening line of this Bible passage: “[Jesus] left that place and entered THEIR synagogue” (Matthew 12:9, NRSV). We’re not talking THE synagogue or even God’s synagogue.  We’re talking their synagogue. From Matthew’s point of view, the ownership of who gets in and who doesn’t get into to their synagogue is up to the members of that synagogue.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, NIV).

              I am watching perseverance in action as I write. A squirrel has figured out how to navigate around the baffle I installed last night to the bird feeder. It took about thirty minutes and countless attempts. But the rodent finally scored it prize.

“But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4, GNT)

              In 1972, Walter Mishel conducted an experiment with a large group of four and five-year-old children. Each child was given a binary choice to either eat a marsh mellow or wait fifteen minutes and receive a second marsh mellow. Follow-up studies on delayed gratification observed that the minority of children who held out for a second marsh mellow went on to enjoy better outcomes in life, to include better social skills, higher test scores, and healthier bodies.

“Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy.  Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it…”  (Exodus 20:8-10, CEB).

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. These are the words of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was not a procrastinator by any means. He worked in four hour bursts and maintained a disciplined schedule.