Pray that Jerusalem has peace: 

"Let those who love you have rest.

Let there be peace on your walls; 

let there be rest on your fortifications."

Psalms 122:6-7 CEB

Cities have walls and fortifications for a reason.

The city has needed protection.

Invaders.

Marauders.

Those who just want to take.

But a city locked up behind walls, with its fortifications bristling, always on alert, that city is surviving.

But it's not thriving.

To thrive it needs people and goods and services to come and go, to connect and communicate with other cities.

Can you see the metaphor here for us, with our walls and defences bristling. They're there for a good reason, but we need to find a way for there to be "peace on your walls" and "rest on your fortifications". 

Difficult task to move a city, to cut off the danger, to shift what needs shifting to find that place of peace, the opportunity for thriving and flourishing, for reconnection.

But it's worth it.

Finding, or moving towards that place of peace doesn't mean we never need the walls, that the fortifications will never be needed again, but there will be rest. 

Rest.

Something our God built in from the very beginning, something we need.

Rest.

To get it, whether we should have to or not, sometimes we have to move.

#psalms

#psalm122

#pilgrimige 

#rest

#peace

#thriving

#onedayallwillbemadenew