Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

Parallel verses:
II Corinthians‬ ‭13:11‬‬‬
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

Psalms‬ ‭28:7‬
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.

I got the chance to go to the snow this past weekend with my children and my dogs. We did some sledding and hiking and had a great time. Two things impacted me, my 4-year-old son and my little 4-month-old puppy. My little boy, after sledding down the hill got up and told me, “Dad, sledding is the best thing ever.” It made my day! And my puppy was so excited to be in the 3 feet of snow, she was literally bounding. She would disappear, and then out of the snow this bundle of joy would leap up in the air … and there was excitement all over her face.

As I read this verse in Romans, the encouragement is to do whatever leads to peace and mutual edification. (And the peace of the Bible is peace with God first and foremost.) And so when I read that, I must ask … what is it that leads to peace and mutual edification? Well the verse in II Corinthians tells us that we are to “rejoice”, seek togetherness, and strive to be unified in our efforts in Christ. And so I thought of the word “Rejoice”, and I thought of that puppy of mine. As she was going through the deep snow, she bounded, then she sunk. Then she rebounded back up again. It’s easy to bound the first time, but rebounding over and over again takes hard work. I think it is the same with rejoicing. We can have initial excitement and joy about something good. But what happens when life seems to deal blow after blow? When we feel sunk in the snow? Will we keep rejoicing? The Bible commands us to. And for me, I must continue to go back to God and lay down my burdens and worries, and drink deep of his goodness and provision for me. I must ask for help sometimes. I must be vulnerable and argue with him at times over unfair situations and painful life issues. But in the end, I always get to rebound and rejoice!

Thank you, Lord, for restoring to me THE JOY OF MY SALVATION today. Your spirit makes this middle-aged guy rejoice with the energy of a puppy once again!