My Prayer for Peace in 2010

"He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man." Luke 2:51-52

I will be limited in my blogging for the next couple of days. Before I step away for a little while I thought about what I would like most for each and everyone to consider in this the new year. I will make this simple. After Luke writes that Jesus returned from the temple to become obedient to his parents, the very next chapter Jesus begins his ministry at 30 years of age. Here is something to reflect on: God spent most of his time as the Incarnate Jesus as just an ordinary person doing ordinary things. The message I believe to grasp from this is that God exalted the ordinary. Jesus was a simple man, a carpenter by trade, working with Joseph, learning the trade and living the life as obedient son. Mary and Joseph and Jesus were poor. They lived at a time when there was in essence a "world government", the Roman Empire which dominated and controlled. Yet Jesus grew in wisdom and found favor both before God and man. In 2010, let us all work to make peace in our families, and communities, with the full knowledge that even the simplest and poverty filled life is an exalted life. There are no mundane tasks, all we do we do to give glory to God, and we do it with our ordinary lives.