FRIDAY, July 17 (William White)

My heart had yearned to live in the country for as  long as I could remember. During car trips on family vacations as a child, I looked out the window as if gazing at an icon of my Shepherd's pasture. I wished to know every blade of grass, every pebble in the soil, every leaf of every tree, and the name of every plant and animal there. I knew God had made that open place, and my feet wanted to traverse it.

Now God has indeed set me in such a place, and I am joyfully blending in with nature. On morning walks, I marvel over prints my shoes leave in the soil next to those of deer, raccoon, possum, and fox who visit our pond at night. God's creatures we all are, enjoying his creation.

Yet while I do not feel "shut up in the power of the enemy," as this psalmist proclaims, the freedom to roam this acreage requires vigilant observation. My feet have landed in the path of an occasional snake, twisted on a loose rock in the road, and stepped in the pelleted waste of wildlife.

He sets my feet in an open place, but "in you,  O Lord, have I taken refuge."

PRAY for the Diocese of Chichester – Horsham  (Canterbury, England)

Ps * 35; 1 Samuel 21:1-15; Acts 13:13-25; Mark 3:7-19a

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