You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
Tomorrow is Independence Day for the United States of America, a milestone birthday. Even after 250 years we have yet to achieve liberty and justice for all. Yet independence means something different in the Christian life than it might socio-politically. I believe God’s greatest desire for us is freedom, to be free from all that holds us back and makes us less than who we were intended to be, less than who God already knows us to be. That freedom does not make us independent, however – it makes us interdependent. That is the kind of liberty Jesus calls us into. He invites us to be tethered to God, to one another and to serving the world, not because we are forced, but by our free choice.
Paul writes in Romans that we have been set free from sin so as to be enslaved to God, being made holy (“sanctified”) in the process. Would we voluntary enslave ourselves to anything? Well, yes. Our lives are full of ways in which we yield our freedom – on a limited basis – to achieve a goal. We become employees working under the policies and procedures of our employers; we pay personal trainers large sums to make us perform painful and arduous exercises; we follow certain diets. I even discovered when I was instituted into ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada that I had sworn an oath of fealty to King Charles!
And we voluntarily take on the yoke Jesus offers, which he says is easy. Which it is, when we truly trust him; it is only when we pull away that we find it chafes.
We are asked to become more dependent on God, to throw all our weight and trust on this One we cannot see but discern in our lives and around us. As we grow in that relationship, we learn the ways that God is depending upon us to be the vessels by which her/his transforming love and healing power are enacted in the world. We cannot do it without God; God will not do it without us.
We are also invited to become interdependent with others in our communities of faith, and with those whom we would serve. And we are interdependent in service to the world, willing to be served as well as to serve. We will see peace and justice reign when we truly understand that to seek the good for our neighbor will create good and security and plenty for us. Even better will be the day when we don’t think in “us” and “them” terms at all – as U2 sings in Invisible, “There is no them; there’s only you, there’s only me.”
I wish all of us a weekend of perfect freedom and fun – with the prayer that, as we celebrate the unfathomable liberties many – though far from all – enjoy as a nation, we find a pattern of “tethered freedom” in Christ that allows us to be truly free.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
7-2-26 - Cure for Inner Conflict
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
The reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome appointed for Sunday is convoluted in language but deeply important in message, as Paul expresses a basic human conundrum: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
This plight will be familiar to anyone who’s ever found himself unable to put down the ice cream container, or stick to one cocktail, or stop herself from telling someone else’s secret… we know what “right” is in most circumstances, and sometimes we just watch ourselves walk right over to the “wrong” side of town. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
Paul sees two forces at work in himself, two competing laws – the law of God, or spirit; and the law of the mind, or “flesh.” Describing the turmoil wrought by the effort to navigate these skirmishes, he ends up with a cry from the heart we’ve all felt at some point or other, especially when faced with the consequences of our choices: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
His answer is close at hand: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The way to stop the cycle of self-destructiveness when we’re in its grip is not to try harder, but to surrender more to the one force in the universe more powerful than our own desires: the God who made us, who sent his Son among us to draw us into a relationship in which our internal battles are overwhelmed by Love. As any recovering addict will tell you, will power doesn't get us very far; surrender to help allows us to go the distance.
God’s power is right here – power to resist evil, turn away from temptation, turn to life instead of death. The only thing we need do is invoke the power of God: "Jesus, be here now!” That was my prayer once when I’d fallen down a flight of stairs; it should be my prayer every time I struggle with choosing the best course.
Let’s not forget the loving invitation we’ve been looking at from our Gospel reading this week: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Turning toward Jesus, calling on the power of the Holy Spirit to fill and transform our desires gets easier the more we do it. It takes a while for anything to become habitual, but with practice, this can become our first response. Just as oxen that are yoked to a cart have to travel together, spirits that are yoked to Christ no longer try to go their own ways but follow his.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome appointed for Sunday is convoluted in language but deeply important in message, as Paul expresses a basic human conundrum: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
This plight will be familiar to anyone who’s ever found himself unable to put down the ice cream container, or stick to one cocktail, or stop herself from telling someone else’s secret… we know what “right” is in most circumstances, and sometimes we just watch ourselves walk right over to the “wrong” side of town. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
Paul sees two forces at work in himself, two competing laws – the law of God, or spirit; and the law of the mind, or “flesh.” Describing the turmoil wrought by the effort to navigate these skirmishes, he ends up with a cry from the heart we’ve all felt at some point or other, especially when faced with the consequences of our choices: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
His answer is close at hand: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The way to stop the cycle of self-destructiveness when we’re in its grip is not to try harder, but to surrender more to the one force in the universe more powerful than our own desires: the God who made us, who sent his Son among us to draw us into a relationship in which our internal battles are overwhelmed by Love. As any recovering addict will tell you, will power doesn't get us very far; surrender to help allows us to go the distance.
God’s power is right here – power to resist evil, turn away from temptation, turn to life instead of death. The only thing we need do is invoke the power of God: "Jesus, be here now!” That was my prayer once when I’d fallen down a flight of stairs; it should be my prayer every time I struggle with choosing the best course.
Let’s not forget the loving invitation we’ve been looking at from our Gospel reading this week: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Turning toward Jesus, calling on the power of the Holy Spirit to fill and transform our desires gets easier the more we do it. It takes a while for anything to become habitual, but with practice, this can become our first response. Just as oxen that are yoked to a cart have to travel together, spirits that are yoked to Christ no longer try to go their own ways but follow his.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
7-1-26 - Come Unto Me
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Were sweeter words ever found in Scripture for a harried people? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Being a disciple means taking on the discipline of a master, doing whatever she or he tells you to do. The Pharisees and teachers of the law demanded much of their followers, to keep the Law of Moses perfectly in every particular. Nuances of love, mercy and relationship often fell by the wayside. The burdens of these demands were heavy indeed, and never satisfactorily met - except by the Teachers, of course.
We can say the same of the demands our culture places upon us – to be more productive, more successful, more financially secure, more fashionable, attractive, sweet-smelling, popular… you name it. The new law is no less onerous than the old. And so Jesus’ invitation is alive for us as well.
We take on a yoke when we take on Christ’s life, as oxen are fitted with an apparatus so they can pull a cart. We offer our obedience to him and take on the ministry of being his apostles, his witnesses – proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, freeing the captives. Like his original disciples, we may be called to give up things or people we find precious for rewards only known later.
But Jesus says his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Unlike the burden of the Law-bound, his is the yoke of freedom in God. Unlike the arrogant Teachers, he is gentle and humble in heart; he was never ashamed to eat with obvious sinners and people on the margins.
Were sweeter words ever found in Scripture for a harried people? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Being a disciple means taking on the discipline of a master, doing whatever she or he tells you to do. The Pharisees and teachers of the law demanded much of their followers, to keep the Law of Moses perfectly in every particular. Nuances of love, mercy and relationship often fell by the wayside. The burdens of these demands were heavy indeed, and never satisfactorily met - except by the Teachers, of course.
We can say the same of the demands our culture places upon us – to be more productive, more successful, more financially secure, more fashionable, attractive, sweet-smelling, popular… you name it. The new law is no less onerous than the old. And so Jesus’ invitation is alive for us as well.
We take on a yoke when we take on Christ’s life, as oxen are fitted with an apparatus so they can pull a cart. We offer our obedience to him and take on the ministry of being his apostles, his witnesses – proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, freeing the captives. Like his original disciples, we may be called to give up things or people we find precious for rewards only known later.
But Jesus says his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Unlike the burden of the Law-bound, his is the yoke of freedom in God. Unlike the arrogant Teachers, he is gentle and humble in heart; he was never ashamed to eat with obvious sinners and people on the margins.
- Do you want to find rest for your soul? In many of us, our soul feels restless, especially in a culture that does not privilege space for the spiritual.
- Have you experienced knowing Jesus as restful or stressful?
- If stressful, we might take a look at what part of his message we’re focusing on.
- What can you do today to find rest for your soul?
Whether you are in the midst of work stress, or easing into a summer vacation, I suggest you start with some “soul rest” in Jesus’ presence. Hand off your burdens and take on his promise of peace. And then spread it around.
6-30-26 - Who're You Calling a Baby?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How do you feel about being called a baby? At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”
We could see it as an insult - or receive it as an invitation to total trust in God. Infants are receiving machines - they do not feed, clothe or even move themselves. The only thing they can “do” is ask for help by using their voices – and reward their helpers with big smiles, which they quickly learn will get them far. If it were true that “God helps those who help themselves,” a deeply destructive maxim nowhere to be found in Christian scripture, none of us would see our first birthdays.
Infants are clear about their needs and quick to ask. They are fully in relationship with their care-givers. We can learn from them to go first to God when we need something instead of making it our last resort. And, as with those babies who reward us with gurgles and smiles, we can learn to praise the moment we receive a gift.
Of course, infants are anything but simple. In their tiny minds and bodies are contained all the systems and equipment that adults have, just waiting to mature. Whether we are young or mature in faith, we too have everything we need to live a God-reliant, praise-filled life – it is all given to us by the Holy Spirit in baptism, waiting to be developed.
How do you feel about being called a baby? At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”
We could see it as an insult - or receive it as an invitation to total trust in God. Infants are receiving machines - they do not feed, clothe or even move themselves. The only thing they can “do” is ask for help by using their voices – and reward their helpers with big smiles, which they quickly learn will get them far. If it were true that “God helps those who help themselves,” a deeply destructive maxim nowhere to be found in Christian scripture, none of us would see our first birthdays.
Infants are clear about their needs and quick to ask. They are fully in relationship with their care-givers. We can learn from them to go first to God when we need something instead of making it our last resort. And, as with those babies who reward us with gurgles and smiles, we can learn to praise the moment we receive a gift.
Of course, infants are anything but simple. In their tiny minds and bodies are contained all the systems and equipment that adults have, just waiting to mature. Whether we are young or mature in faith, we too have everything we need to live a God-reliant, praise-filled life – it is all given to us by the Holy Spirit in baptism, waiting to be developed.
- What are some attributes of infants that you might borrow and try on as you approach God?
- What are the things you cannot do for yourself that you are afraid to trust God with? Or eager to?
The most challenging part of faith-life for many is having to depend upon the grace and mercy and power of God for what matters most in the long term. Learning to receive God’s goodness and not worry so much about repaying – for we cannot – is a mark of maturity in faith.
Today in prayer try an imagination exercise – imagine yourself as an infant being held or watched over by Jesus… that image once came to me in healing prayer.
How does he interact with you in that prayer space?
Does he say anything? Do you? What do you feel?
Infants have a huge learning curve, because they have everything about life to learn. As Christ followers, we are in a similar position – we have everything about God-Life to learn. Let’s open our spiritual senses and breathe it in.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Today in prayer try an imagination exercise – imagine yourself as an infant being held or watched over by Jesus… that image once came to me in healing prayer.
How does he interact with you in that prayer space?
Does he say anything? Do you? What do you feel?
Infants have a huge learning curve, because they have everything about life to learn. As Christ followers, we are in a similar position – we have everything about God-Life to learn. Let’s open our spiritual senses and breathe it in.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-29-26 - Hidden From the Wise
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Summertime – and the living is easy… or should be. This week’s gospel contains Jesus’ beautiful invitation to “come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Perfect for a holiday week, right? (Canada Day on July 1, U.S. Independence Day on July 4…)
In the section before this, Jesus inveighs against the faithlessness of his critics, chiefly the Pharisees and their ilk. He is also angered by the fickleness and lack of faith he finds among his own people relative to what he encounters in Gentiles. Forget the scholars, he says – give me the simple-hearted: At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”
Sometimes knowledge gets in the way of our understanding; expectations cloud our ability to see the surprising; familiarity obscures the fullness of revelation. People envy those who have a “simple faith,” an ability to say “yes” to the story of God’s revelation in Christ, and to participate in that story. Blessed are the simple-hearted – for they are often better at living by the Spirit.
And yet the Gospel is also given for those of us who think too much - we just make it harder for ourselves. In the final analysis, analysis will not yield full understanding, any more than playing with the food on our plate will get us fed. The Good News is a gift to be taken and received, ingested, allowed to play in our minds, hearts and spirits.
Summertime – and the living is easy… or should be. This week’s gospel contains Jesus’ beautiful invitation to “come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Perfect for a holiday week, right? (Canada Day on July 1, U.S. Independence Day on July 4…)
In the section before this, Jesus inveighs against the faithlessness of his critics, chiefly the Pharisees and their ilk. He is also angered by the fickleness and lack of faith he finds among his own people relative to what he encounters in Gentiles. Forget the scholars, he says – give me the simple-hearted: At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”
Sometimes knowledge gets in the way of our understanding; expectations cloud our ability to see the surprising; familiarity obscures the fullness of revelation. People envy those who have a “simple faith,” an ability to say “yes” to the story of God’s revelation in Christ, and to participate in that story. Blessed are the simple-hearted – for they are often better at living by the Spirit.
And yet the Gospel is also given for those of us who think too much - we just make it harder for ourselves. In the final analysis, analysis will not yield full understanding, any more than playing with the food on our plate will get us fed. The Good News is a gift to be taken and received, ingested, allowed to play in our minds, hearts and spirits.
- Is the life of faith simple or complex for you?
- How do you most fully connect with God – through your mind or your emotions or both?
If your analytical self gets in your way spiritually, you might try on a prayer practice of inviting Jesus to make his presence known, and just be with him, letting your feelings become known. And if you tend to shy away from theological thinking, you might try a bible study and let your mind play.
Thanks be to God, even the most “wise and intelligent” among us are also invited to be “infants” in Christ, to learn to rely fully on the One who made us, loves us and renews us. He will not leave us hungry.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Thanks be to God, even the most “wise and intelligent” among us are also invited to be “infants” in Christ, to learn to rely fully on the One who made us, loves us and renews us. He will not leave us hungry.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-26-26 - God's Free Gift
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
In the passage from Romans appointed for this Sunday’s readings, Paul unfolds an argument to support his contention that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not through our own efforts. It is Christ’s sacrifice that sets us free, not our own will-power or ability to modify our behaviors… indeed, behavior change comes as we accept with relief the free gift of forgiveness and grace: But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In order to truly receive the free gift of God’s eternal life – which begins now, not just when we die – we need to allow God to free us from sin. Paul is concerned lest his listeners think this extravagant grace invites us to more sin. “Should we sin the more, that grace may abound?” he asks rhetorically, offering a resounding “No!” to the question. Rather, we should allow the gift of God’s grace to loosen sin’s grip on us.
“Sin” can be defined in many ways, but one way Paul uses the term is to name the purely human, self-oriented nature that exists in all of us. All those things we label as “sins” grow out of that basic sinfulness, an orientation toward self that can cause us to see other people as objects for our gratification, and God’s creation as something to be exploited. When Paul says we have been freed from sin, that is an “already” gift, given at baptism, secured by Christ’s sacrifice, made real in his resurrection. As we let that reality seep into our bones we are freed to choose the Spirit-led life Jesus won for us. The fancy word for that is “sanctification," becoming holy.
Paul adds, provocatively, that we exchange one bondage for another, as we now “become enslaved to God.” Yet such a voluntary relinquishing of our self-will and prerogatives invites us into a freedom unlike any other. It is a freedom that allows us to love beyond our capacity, to forgive more than we think possible, to walk into God’s dreams for mission, to offer healing and ministry in Jesus’ name that enriches our lives beyond measure and transforms others.
That’s the free gift of eternal life we have already received in Christ Jesus. Let's not leave it on the closet shelf.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In the passage from Romans appointed for this Sunday’s readings, Paul unfolds an argument to support his contention that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not through our own efforts. It is Christ’s sacrifice that sets us free, not our own will-power or ability to modify our behaviors… indeed, behavior change comes as we accept with relief the free gift of forgiveness and grace: But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In order to truly receive the free gift of God’s eternal life – which begins now, not just when we die – we need to allow God to free us from sin. Paul is concerned lest his listeners think this extravagant grace invites us to more sin. “Should we sin the more, that grace may abound?” he asks rhetorically, offering a resounding “No!” to the question. Rather, we should allow the gift of God’s grace to loosen sin’s grip on us.
“Sin” can be defined in many ways, but one way Paul uses the term is to name the purely human, self-oriented nature that exists in all of us. All those things we label as “sins” grow out of that basic sinfulness, an orientation toward self that can cause us to see other people as objects for our gratification, and God’s creation as something to be exploited. When Paul says we have been freed from sin, that is an “already” gift, given at baptism, secured by Christ’s sacrifice, made real in his resurrection. As we let that reality seep into our bones we are freed to choose the Spirit-led life Jesus won for us. The fancy word for that is “sanctification," becoming holy.
Paul adds, provocatively, that we exchange one bondage for another, as we now “become enslaved to God.” Yet such a voluntary relinquishing of our self-will and prerogatives invites us into a freedom unlike any other. It is a freedom that allows us to love beyond our capacity, to forgive more than we think possible, to walk into God’s dreams for mission, to offer healing and ministry in Jesus’ name that enriches our lives beyond measure and transforms others.
That’s the free gift of eternal life we have already received in Christ Jesus. Let's not leave it on the closet shelf.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-25-26 - Instruments of Righteousness
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
For the rest of the week we turn to Sunday’s passage from Romans, which is such a deep and complex work of theology, it’s a hard to just take a quick dip in it. But let’s jump in anyway, because it contains a beautiful invitation to freedom in Christ – freedom from sin, and freedom from the effort to claw our way into God’s good graces. Paul writes, Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
It doesn’t always feel like we are living under grace – the world lives by law, and we often ingest the message that we’re never quite righteous enough, no matter what we do. And on one level, we’re right – we’re not. In our own merely human selves, we are wired for self-gratification and self-righteousness. The Good News is that we are made righteous, deemed righteous by the righteousness of Jesus – we get to put on his goodness as we “put on Christ” in baptism.
I once explained this to someone who had grown up in a religious system of judgment and legalism, condemnation and never-good-enough-ness. She said, “Wait, you’re telling me I’m off the hook?” “Yes!” I said, “Jesus took the hook for us." We are off the hook of trying to save ourselves, justify ourselves, grit our teeth and discipline ourselves into better behavior. It is not about behavior; it is about belonging to the God whose love is so overwhelming it can set the whole world free, who can bring us from death into life.
As we take in that breathtaking Good News, we start to see that it is the power of Christ’s life released in us that enables us to “not let sin exercise dominion” in us. In the face of temptations to gossip, or judge, or exert power over another, or manipulate something for our own gain, we may be weak, but St. Paul tells us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. We don’t have to try harder; we have to accept the gift of God’s grace more deeply, and allow that life to flow through us in love.
We don’t discipline ourselves into being more loved; we are loved into making more holy and life-giving choices. Thus we become vessels of God’s goodness; conductors of God’s power into people and places in need of healing; instruments of God’s righteousness through whom the sweetness and grace and mercy of God’s song of love can echo throughout the universe.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
For the rest of the week we turn to Sunday’s passage from Romans, which is such a deep and complex work of theology, it’s a hard to just take a quick dip in it. But let’s jump in anyway, because it contains a beautiful invitation to freedom in Christ – freedom from sin, and freedom from the effort to claw our way into God’s good graces. Paul writes, Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
It doesn’t always feel like we are living under grace – the world lives by law, and we often ingest the message that we’re never quite righteous enough, no matter what we do. And on one level, we’re right – we’re not. In our own merely human selves, we are wired for self-gratification and self-righteousness. The Good News is that we are made righteous, deemed righteous by the righteousness of Jesus – we get to put on his goodness as we “put on Christ” in baptism.
I once explained this to someone who had grown up in a religious system of judgment and legalism, condemnation and never-good-enough-ness. She said, “Wait, you’re telling me I’m off the hook?” “Yes!” I said, “Jesus took the hook for us." We are off the hook of trying to save ourselves, justify ourselves, grit our teeth and discipline ourselves into better behavior. It is not about behavior; it is about belonging to the God whose love is so overwhelming it can set the whole world free, who can bring us from death into life.
As we take in that breathtaking Good News, we start to see that it is the power of Christ’s life released in us that enables us to “not let sin exercise dominion” in us. In the face of temptations to gossip, or judge, or exert power over another, or manipulate something for our own gain, we may be weak, but St. Paul tells us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. We don’t have to try harder; we have to accept the gift of God’s grace more deeply, and allow that life to flow through us in love.
We don’t discipline ourselves into being more loved; we are loved into making more holy and life-giving choices. Thus we become vessels of God’s goodness; conductors of God’s power into people and places in need of healing; instruments of God’s righteousness through whom the sweetness and grace and mercy of God’s song of love can echo throughout the universe.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-24-26 - Sent
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I didn’t think I could squeeze one more word out of this this week’s short Gospel passage, but I might just manage one: Sent. It is implied in what Jesus says about people welcoming those who come in his name as prophets and righteous folks, that they are sent, as he was sent. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
What does it mean to be sent? Messengers are sent, ambassadors are sent, representatives are sent, teams are sent out on the field, troops to war, first responders to accident sites… To be sent means to be deployed for a specific purpose. Most often our being sent bears some relation to our skills or connections.
Jesus sent his disciples to proclaim Good News of God’s activity in the world, to announce freedom to the poor and those in captivity, to heal the sick and raise the dead. Those are still pretty much the reasons he sends his followers out. Do you feel sent to any particular place or people? Where do your skills and connections and passions point you?
It can take a while to discern where we are being sent – and those “in between” times can be hard to wait through. But I have learned it’s better to wait till things begin to become clear, not force a decision or make a choice out of anxiety or an excess of rational thinking; discerning God’s sending needs to come from both head and heart. And often we don’t fully know it is the “most right” thing till we arrive. The confirmation does come, sooner or later. (For me in this new call in Nova Scotia it was immediate and only keeps growing.)
In my experience, when I am sent by God, I'm also led and equipped. Unlike a courier who goes out and reports back, apostles of Jesus Christ get to carry his presence and power with us as we go. It takes off some of the pressure, if we can only allow the Spirit to do the work and stop taking it on ourselves.
I didn’t think I could squeeze one more word out of this this week’s short Gospel passage, but I might just manage one: Sent. It is implied in what Jesus says about people welcoming those who come in his name as prophets and righteous folks, that they are sent, as he was sent. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
What does it mean to be sent? Messengers are sent, ambassadors are sent, representatives are sent, teams are sent out on the field, troops to war, first responders to accident sites… To be sent means to be deployed for a specific purpose. Most often our being sent bears some relation to our skills or connections.
Jesus sent his disciples to proclaim Good News of God’s activity in the world, to announce freedom to the poor and those in captivity, to heal the sick and raise the dead. Those are still pretty much the reasons he sends his followers out. Do you feel sent to any particular place or people? Where do your skills and connections and passions point you?
It can take a while to discern where we are being sent – and those “in between” times can be hard to wait through. But I have learned it’s better to wait till things begin to become clear, not force a decision or make a choice out of anxiety or an excess of rational thinking; discerning God’s sending needs to come from both head and heart. And often we don’t fully know it is the “most right” thing till we arrive. The confirmation does come, sooner or later. (For me in this new call in Nova Scotia it was immediate and only keeps growing.)
In my experience, when I am sent by God, I'm also led and equipped. Unlike a courier who goes out and reports back, apostles of Jesus Christ get to carry his presence and power with us as we go. It takes off some of the pressure, if we can only allow the Spirit to do the work and stop taking it on ourselves.
- When have you felt sent by God, short or long-term?
- What inner urges are you discerning – or trying to push down?
- Where would you like to be sent? Where are you afraid to be sent?
Being sent starts, like everything in the Christian life, with relationship. We strengthen our relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit so that we can better understand God's prompts. They might come through our own desires, or through discerning a need or a lack. Sometimes God makes it clear through dreams and “coincidences” that cannot finally be denied. We can check with others if a calling seems really odd or risky – and if we go forward, know it will be most fruitful as we are aware of going with God, not for God.
Wherever God sends us, when we get there, we find God there too. Funny how that works.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Wherever God sends us, when we get there, we find God there too. Funny how that works.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-23-26 - Ministry With
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“…And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
People often take Jesus’ remark about bringing cups of water to “these little ones” as a prompt to do outreach. While Jesus is big on caring for people in need, that’s not his meaning here. He is saying that those who do ministry with us, “in the name of a disciple,” will also be blessed.
A church I once served provided a monthly meal at the city's shelter for unhoused men. I would bring my guitar and sing a few songs while the crew was readying the meal in the kitchen. The gentlemen waiting for dinner were appreciative; “dinner and a show!,” some remarked. But I liked it best when someone there wanted to play. I’d hand over the guitar and let him entertain the group.
People need to be invited to participate when we’re doing “good works.” We can offer ministry to, or we can offer ministry with – and “with” is much more inclusive and empowering. Just think which you would prefer if you were in need. Inviting other people to join us as we go about ministries of help and transformation is one of the most powerful ways to share the Gospel with others. It makes the Good News visible as people see a community of Christ-followers in action – that witness is often as vivid and appealing as the work being done.
Many churches are finding they draw more congregants by giving people opportunities to serve than by trying to entice them to worship. That puts the onus on us to be open to relationships as we serve meals and deliver clothes and visit those in prison, to get out from behind the counters and talk to the people we are serving, finding out what their gifts are. I dream of a church where the well-fed and the hungry worship and serve together in one diverse community. That is what the first community of Christ-followers looked like.
“…And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
People often take Jesus’ remark about bringing cups of water to “these little ones” as a prompt to do outreach. While Jesus is big on caring for people in need, that’s not his meaning here. He is saying that those who do ministry with us, “in the name of a disciple,” will also be blessed.
A church I once served provided a monthly meal at the city's shelter for unhoused men. I would bring my guitar and sing a few songs while the crew was readying the meal in the kitchen. The gentlemen waiting for dinner were appreciative; “dinner and a show!,” some remarked. But I liked it best when someone there wanted to play. I’d hand over the guitar and let him entertain the group.
People need to be invited to participate when we’re doing “good works.” We can offer ministry to, or we can offer ministry with – and “with” is much more inclusive and empowering. Just think which you would prefer if you were in need. Inviting other people to join us as we go about ministries of help and transformation is one of the most powerful ways to share the Gospel with others. It makes the Good News visible as people see a community of Christ-followers in action – that witness is often as vivid and appealing as the work being done.
Many churches are finding they draw more congregants by giving people opportunities to serve than by trying to entice them to worship. That puts the onus on us to be open to relationships as we serve meals and deliver clothes and visit those in prison, to get out from behind the counters and talk to the people we are serving, finding out what their gifts are. I dream of a church where the well-fed and the hungry worship and serve together in one diverse community. That is what the first community of Christ-followers looked like.
- What forms of helping or outreach or volunteering are you involved in?
- Is there room for inviting neighbors, or even recipients of that help to participate in helping others?
- Can you think of ways to form community with the givers and the receivers until we are all aware of being both? No "us" and "them?"
In what ways do you sense God inviting you to work with God in bringing light and life to someone? Have you had a conversation with Jesus about that? Want to bring that up in prayer today?
It makes sense to do ministry with the ones for whom we offer our time and resources, because God has invited us to do ministry with God. We don’t work “for” God – we work with God, at the direction and power of the Spirit moving through us. If we give someone else the opportunity to offer a gift to someone in need, even us, we have given them a chance to live more deeply.
From God’s perspective, we are all “these little ones,” and we are all in need of the water of life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
It makes sense to do ministry with the ones for whom we offer our time and resources, because God has invited us to do ministry with God. We don’t work “for” God – we work with God, at the direction and power of the Spirit moving through us. If we give someone else the opportunity to offer a gift to someone in need, even us, we have given them a chance to live more deeply.
From God’s perspective, we are all “these little ones,” and we are all in need of the water of life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-22-26 - Welcome
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Permit me a rant… yesterday’s Gospel was 315 words of dense, challenging, provocative, hard-to-find-the-Good- News-in teaching from Jesus. And next Sunday’s? 82 words in 2 sentences, four clauses, saying not all that much. Grrrr! On the other hand, if we could parry all that talk about swords, surely we can dive in and welcome the gifts of this very brief passage… which is all about welcoming.
After Jesus gives his followers hard instructions about going out to proclaim the Good News and heal the sick, he softens a bit, saying of those among whom they would go, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
Jesus stressed welcome in his sending talk, because his followers were to go to villages and towns taking nothing along, no extra tunics, no clean underwear, no toothbrush, no money. They were to rely on the hospitality of those who welcomed them – and if they were not welcomed in one place, they were to move on, save their breath.
This is important for us to hear. So often we express anxiety about discussing our faith with others; we assume that conversation will not be welcomed. Well, so what? Some will want it, some won’t. If someone is not interested, move on, Jesus says, because you will find someone who does want to talk about matters of spirit and will be grateful that you had the courage to engage them in a conversation of the heart.
Mindfulness workshops and yoga retreats notwithstanding, our culture makes little room for spirituality that is rooted in religious tradition. When we introduce the spiritual into a conversation we are making space for a holy connection. We rely on the hospitality of the other person to welcome us into that space. If the other person doesn’t want to, no problem. Try again with someone else. Be open to the conversation if someone else introduces it. Let’s invite people to see our connection to God.
Permit me a rant… yesterday’s Gospel was 315 words of dense, challenging, provocative, hard-to-find-the-Good- News-in teaching from Jesus. And next Sunday’s? 82 words in 2 sentences, four clauses, saying not all that much. Grrrr! On the other hand, if we could parry all that talk about swords, surely we can dive in and welcome the gifts of this very brief passage… which is all about welcoming.
After Jesus gives his followers hard instructions about going out to proclaim the Good News and heal the sick, he softens a bit, saying of those among whom they would go, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
Jesus stressed welcome in his sending talk, because his followers were to go to villages and towns taking nothing along, no extra tunics, no clean underwear, no toothbrush, no money. They were to rely on the hospitality of those who welcomed them – and if they were not welcomed in one place, they were to move on, save their breath.
This is important for us to hear. So often we express anxiety about discussing our faith with others; we assume that conversation will not be welcomed. Well, so what? Some will want it, some won’t. If someone is not interested, move on, Jesus says, because you will find someone who does want to talk about matters of spirit and will be grateful that you had the courage to engage them in a conversation of the heart.
Mindfulness workshops and yoga retreats notwithstanding, our culture makes little room for spirituality that is rooted in religious tradition. When we introduce the spiritual into a conversation we are making space for a holy connection. We rely on the hospitality of the other person to welcome us into that space. If the other person doesn’t want to, no problem. Try again with someone else. Be open to the conversation if someone else introduces it. Let’s invite people to see our connection to God.
- Do you anticipate rejection when you contemplate talking about your experience with God, Jesus, Spirit, or do you expect welcome? Either way, we can be surprised…
- Can you think of a person with whom you might want to start that conversation?
- What do you think his or her reaction would be if you raised a spiritual subject?
We don’t have cold-call people. We can respond to the Spirit’s prompts about who might be open. We can ask God in prayer, even over a period of weeks or years, “Shall I talk to that person about my faith? What’s the right approach? When do you think I should do it?” I believe that’s a prayer that God will answer, maybe with a sign of some kind, or by our getting a feeling of “wait” or “go,” or there being an opening. That prayer will open our spirits and prepare us.
Jesus implies that someone will welcome us as we go about the mission of God to restore all things and all people to wholeness. And when they do welcome us, as we go in Christ’s name, they are welcoming him, and in welcoming him, they are welcoming God himself.
It’s like bringing the CEO on a sales call, or having the chief of surgery giving an injection. We get to be the advance folks; God does the work.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus implies that someone will welcome us as we go about the mission of God to restore all things and all people to wholeness. And when they do welcome us, as we go in Christ’s name, they are welcoming him, and in welcoming him, they are welcoming God himself.
It’s like bringing the CEO on a sales call, or having the chief of surgery giving an injection. We get to be the advance folks; God does the work.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-19-26 - Family Values
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I am amused when “family values” are equated with a 1950s two-parent nuclear unit, as though that were a perfect reflection of Christian virtue. In fact, Jesus disregarded his own mother publicly when she showed up with his brothers to quiet him down and bring him home. He also said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
For those who would follow Jesus, family is not blood kin, but the community of fellow Christ-followers. Loving God comes first, no matter what. As a pastor frequently frustrated when the claims of nuclear family impede involvement in church family, I read those words with a certain grumpiness. Sigh! It’s been a hard week in Water Daily Land, trying to interpret one hard teaching about priorities after another. Putting Jesus first is more counter-cultural all the time. Our culture says family comes first, no matter what. And we are much more formed by our culture than by what Jesus taught.
You may be familiar with the Jesus Doll, a rag doll with brown hair and a beard, a tunic, coat and sandals. He's soft and squishable and great for kids. In a previous parish, we let kids bring Jesus the Doll home for a week. They were encouraged to take Jesus everywhere they went, and to write in the journal that accompanied him. Where did Jesus go this week? Gymnastics? The swimming pool? Walking the dog? Fishing? Kids loved it. Mothers found it more wearing.
“Oh my God,” one said, “It’s unbelievably stressful having Jesus! I was afraid the dog would eat his sandals, or him. I was afraid we’d leave him somewhere!” Another, unable to get Jesus back to us for several weeks, wrote an apologetic email. She’d been sick, the kids had been sick, her husband had been away on business, Jewish friends visited, so they put him away; some other things happened… she concluded, “It just wasn’t a good week to have the Son of God at our house!”
News flash: it’s never a good week to have the Son of God at our house! Life is a whole lot easier with the priorities the world presents us: “Take what you want, when you want it, with whom you want it.” Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have already decided that is not your choice. Maybe you’ve entered the relationship into which Jesus invites you, or you are curious and exploring it. Maybe you’ve already discovered what Christians have known for 2000 years, that life is infinitely richer – though no less painful – when we are aware of having the Son of God around our house.
Jesus did not come to make us feel better about our lives. Jesus came to draw us closer in the one relationship we will have for eternity, in intimacy with God. Starting that relationship here and now makes our lives more purposeful – and often more stressful. “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” Jesus says at the end of this teaching.
I am amused when “family values” are equated with a 1950s two-parent nuclear unit, as though that were a perfect reflection of Christian virtue. In fact, Jesus disregarded his own mother publicly when she showed up with his brothers to quiet him down and bring him home. He also said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
For those who would follow Jesus, family is not blood kin, but the community of fellow Christ-followers. Loving God comes first, no matter what. As a pastor frequently frustrated when the claims of nuclear family impede involvement in church family, I read those words with a certain grumpiness. Sigh! It’s been a hard week in Water Daily Land, trying to interpret one hard teaching about priorities after another. Putting Jesus first is more counter-cultural all the time. Our culture says family comes first, no matter what. And we are much more formed by our culture than by what Jesus taught.
You may be familiar with the Jesus Doll, a rag doll with brown hair and a beard, a tunic, coat and sandals. He's soft and squishable and great for kids. In a previous parish, we let kids bring Jesus the Doll home for a week. They were encouraged to take Jesus everywhere they went, and to write in the journal that accompanied him. Where did Jesus go this week? Gymnastics? The swimming pool? Walking the dog? Fishing? Kids loved it. Mothers found it more wearing.
“Oh my God,” one said, “It’s unbelievably stressful having Jesus! I was afraid the dog would eat his sandals, or him. I was afraid we’d leave him somewhere!” Another, unable to get Jesus back to us for several weeks, wrote an apologetic email. She’d been sick, the kids had been sick, her husband had been away on business, Jewish friends visited, so they put him away; some other things happened… she concluded, “It just wasn’t a good week to have the Son of God at our house!”
News flash: it’s never a good week to have the Son of God at our house! Life is a whole lot easier with the priorities the world presents us: “Take what you want, when you want it, with whom you want it.” Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have already decided that is not your choice. Maybe you’ve entered the relationship into which Jesus invites you, or you are curious and exploring it. Maybe you’ve already discovered what Christians have known for 2000 years, that life is infinitely richer – though no less painful – when we are aware of having the Son of God around our house.
Jesus did not come to make us feel better about our lives. Jesus came to draw us closer in the one relationship we will have for eternity, in intimacy with God. Starting that relationship here and now makes our lives more purposeful – and often more stressful. “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” Jesus says at the end of this teaching.
- What are some of the ways Jesus’ claims have caused you to “lose your life,” or at least to give up some patterns that felt easy but were not life-giving?
- What are some of the ways you resist putting God in first place in your life?
- Who or what would have to be moved to second or third?
- Can you offer that to God in prayer, inviting the Spirit in?
The gift – which we can only discover by doing it – is that when we move God-life into first place, we engage our other priorities more fully, because we don’t try to own them. We appreciate them as gifts, and can stop ranking them. Maybe that’s what Jesus means by “finding our life…”
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-18-26 - Jesus' Sword
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I wonder if Jesus knew how much carnage would be wrought in his name because of these words attributed to the Prince of Peace, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Would he have said them? Did he say them? By the time Matthew wrote his account of Jesus’ life, these words would have passed through quite a few reporters. Maybe they got skewed? How I wish they had never been written down.
So much blood has been shed between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples, Christians and other Christians. There have been crusades and counter-crusades, attacks and massacres, reprisals and counter-reprisals. Rivers of blood have flowed as corrupt politicians hungry for land, oil, power, vengeance and money have joined with zealots to cloak their murderous agendas in religious language. There is enough violent rhetoric in the scriptures of many religions, including our own, to fuel endless bloodshed.
And Jesus isn’t even talking about conflict between enemies but in families. He goes on to say, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” What?
I believe Jesus was saying that conflict would be an inevitable consequence of following him in his mission. Jesus came to wield God’s love in the face of this world's evils, injustice and oppression, corruption and complacency. That does not make for a peaceful life. Those whose mission is peace often provoke conflict and die violently.
Notice, Jesus did not say, “I have come not to bring peace, but violence.” He said, “not peace but a sword." Look at some of the other ways “sword” is used in the New Testament: The sword of the Spirit is one of the defensive weapons we take up against the devil. In Hebrews we read that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, “…dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow …” That is surgically sharp!
The sword Jesus refers to can be a sword of discernment, distinguishing good from evil, what will bless us and make us effective as disciples from what will harm us and make us complacent and weak. He is saying there is evil in the world, and his followers need to be ready to distinguish the Kingdom of Light from the realm of darkness. Sometimes that does divide families.
Jesus demands our fidelity over all other claims. The priorities of this world – family, wealth, convenience, success, distraction – do not make us effective disciples. Jesus is just calling it. We can be fuzzy, or we can be clear. Jesus came not to bring peace but reality and radical freedom to move in God’s Spirit.
I wonder if Jesus knew how much carnage would be wrought in his name because of these words attributed to the Prince of Peace, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Would he have said them? Did he say them? By the time Matthew wrote his account of Jesus’ life, these words would have passed through quite a few reporters. Maybe they got skewed? How I wish they had never been written down.
So much blood has been shed between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples, Christians and other Christians. There have been crusades and counter-crusades, attacks and massacres, reprisals and counter-reprisals. Rivers of blood have flowed as corrupt politicians hungry for land, oil, power, vengeance and money have joined with zealots to cloak their murderous agendas in religious language. There is enough violent rhetoric in the scriptures of many religions, including our own, to fuel endless bloodshed.
And Jesus isn’t even talking about conflict between enemies but in families. He goes on to say, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” What?
I believe Jesus was saying that conflict would be an inevitable consequence of following him in his mission. Jesus came to wield God’s love in the face of this world's evils, injustice and oppression, corruption and complacency. That does not make for a peaceful life. Those whose mission is peace often provoke conflict and die violently.
Notice, Jesus did not say, “I have come not to bring peace, but violence.” He said, “not peace but a sword." Look at some of the other ways “sword” is used in the New Testament: The sword of the Spirit is one of the defensive weapons we take up against the devil. In Hebrews we read that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, “…dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow …” That is surgically sharp!
The sword Jesus refers to can be a sword of discernment, distinguishing good from evil, what will bless us and make us effective as disciples from what will harm us and make us complacent and weak. He is saying there is evil in the world, and his followers need to be ready to distinguish the Kingdom of Light from the realm of darkness. Sometimes that does divide families.
Jesus demands our fidelity over all other claims. The priorities of this world – family, wealth, convenience, success, distraction – do not make us effective disciples. Jesus is just calling it. We can be fuzzy, or we can be clear. Jesus came not to bring peace but reality and radical freedom to move in God’s Spirit.
- Have you ever had to make a choice to disassociate from people or practices that were destructive for you?
- Do you face such dilemmas in your life now?
- Might we ask for the Spirit's help to marry “mission clarity” with our calling to be peacemakers?
Jesus paid the ultimate price for his mission, at least in worldly terms. In eternal terms, he was just getting started.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-17-26 - Is Our Faith Public?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We are often judged by the company we keep. Are we willing to let the world know we hang out with Jesus? He lays it on the line in this week's passage. After telling his disciples to go forward boldly, proclaiming the good news, healing the sick, he says, "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.”
It’s hard when Jesus raises the stakes like that. Where’s the mercy? It seems, from things he is recorded as having said in the gospels, that Jesus was short on mercy for religious insiders who refused to accept the good news of “God-With-Us” that he had revealed to them. His mercy ran more freely to outsiders or underdogs than to his own peers. It is unsurprising that people in need would more readily accept Jesus’ revelation of his messiahship than the “insiders” who were so sure they knew what God would look and act like. And Jesus cuts the insiders no slack.
Jesus is not in a “slack-cutting” mode in this training talk. He knew time was short; that those who said “Lord, Lord” really had to stand by their allegiance to him, and not go quiet when the association proved inconvenient or dangerous. Would he go any easier on us?
Some years ago I read the The Tenth Parallel, by Eliza Griswold, on clashes between Christianity and Islam in Muslim and Christian communities in Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. In Malaysia she met an indigenous Orang Asli who was a convert to Christianity (many Orang Asli are trying hard to hold on to their traditional beliefs and practices under threat of extinction, but some do convert). Christians and other religious minorities suffer harsh persecution in Malaysia, which has a vigorously conservative and oppressive Muslim majority.
This pastor said to her, "Americans don’t care what’s happening in other places, do they?," a sentiment she also encountered among persecuted Christians elsewhere. "He pondered aloud if need kept people closer to God and God closer to them,” she writes, and then quotes him: “I wonder, is there a place for God’s word in the lives of people who have everything?’”
It’s a good question. In my privileged segment of Christendom, proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord is often muted; to some, saying “Jesus” smacks of fundamentalism. Some Anglicans are hostile to the word evangelism, as though there were only one (obnoxious) way to share faith. Others are happy to be affiliated with Jesus – in church on Sundays – but reluctant to let that be known in the circles they travel the rest of the week.
Are we willing to be public about our affiliation with Jesus, the Christ; to acknowledge his Lordship in our lives? Does it make us uncomfortable? Is Jesus, and proclaiming wholeness and peace in his name, important enough to us?
We sit under the judgment of Jesus’ words as well as the promises they contain. What is the place for God’s word in the lives of people who have everything?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We are often judged by the company we keep. Are we willing to let the world know we hang out with Jesus? He lays it on the line in this week's passage. After telling his disciples to go forward boldly, proclaiming the good news, healing the sick, he says, "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.”
It’s hard when Jesus raises the stakes like that. Where’s the mercy? It seems, from things he is recorded as having said in the gospels, that Jesus was short on mercy for religious insiders who refused to accept the good news of “God-With-Us” that he had revealed to them. His mercy ran more freely to outsiders or underdogs than to his own peers. It is unsurprising that people in need would more readily accept Jesus’ revelation of his messiahship than the “insiders” who were so sure they knew what God would look and act like. And Jesus cuts the insiders no slack.
Jesus is not in a “slack-cutting” mode in this training talk. He knew time was short; that those who said “Lord, Lord” really had to stand by their allegiance to him, and not go quiet when the association proved inconvenient or dangerous. Would he go any easier on us?
Some years ago I read the The Tenth Parallel, by Eliza Griswold, on clashes between Christianity and Islam in Muslim and Christian communities in Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. In Malaysia she met an indigenous Orang Asli who was a convert to Christianity (many Orang Asli are trying hard to hold on to their traditional beliefs and practices under threat of extinction, but some do convert). Christians and other religious minorities suffer harsh persecution in Malaysia, which has a vigorously conservative and oppressive Muslim majority.
This pastor said to her, "Americans don’t care what’s happening in other places, do they?," a sentiment she also encountered among persecuted Christians elsewhere. "He pondered aloud if need kept people closer to God and God closer to them,” she writes, and then quotes him: “I wonder, is there a place for God’s word in the lives of people who have everything?’”
It’s a good question. In my privileged segment of Christendom, proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord is often muted; to some, saying “Jesus” smacks of fundamentalism. Some Anglicans are hostile to the word evangelism, as though there were only one (obnoxious) way to share faith. Others are happy to be affiliated with Jesus – in church on Sundays – but reluctant to let that be known in the circles they travel the rest of the week.
Are we willing to be public about our affiliation with Jesus, the Christ; to acknowledge his Lordship in our lives? Does it make us uncomfortable? Is Jesus, and proclaiming wholeness and peace in his name, important enough to us?
We sit under the judgment of Jesus’ words as well as the promises they contain. What is the place for God’s word in the lives of people who have everything?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-16-26 - Splitting Hairs
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Have no fear of them,” Jesus says, as he tells his followers of the enemies they may encounter on God’s mission. “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
So, God knows the number of hairs on our heads (what if you're bald?) and values us even more than precious sparrows. That does not mean God promises us physical protection. (Read Psalm 79 sometime, and remember that most of the people to whom Jesus was speaking died a martyr’s death.) It may mean simply that we are of infinite value to God, whose love for us is not diminished by our physical death.
It is a hard balance we seek as followers of the One who promised eternal life: to live fully in this life, loving its gifts and pursuing God’s mission in the world, while holding this life lightly, knowing it is not our final destination. People who have had near-death experiences often say they no longer fear death. And it is the fear of death that so often holds us back from fully living our lives.
Jesus is not minimizing the trauma of physical death, I don’t think. He is inviting us to weigh that against the greater trauma of spiritual death, apathy or even allegiance to that enemy who seeks to degrade and destroy God's creatures. If fear of death, or fear of losing income or time or reputation keeps us from giving our hearts to God, we place ourselves in spiritual peril. Following Jesus does not mean that nothing else in our lives matters; it means we gradually allow ourselves to put God first, above every other thing and person who claims our love. It’s not either-or; it’s both-and… and in the order of priority. God comes first.
And if God comes first, it lowers the stakes for everything else. We can be more confident taking risks when we value our God-Life more than our physical life. Not caring so much about our physical existence – while still investing in it; I did say it was a balancing act – sets us free to discover who we most fully are, how exquisitely and uniquely we are made. Rather than seeing Jesus’ words as warning, might we take them as invitation to greater freedom?
Today let's examine what holds us back from making God our number one priority, if God is not. What fears impede our proclaiming our allegiance to God in Christ?
If we can name our fears, we can invite the Holy Spirit to transform them into freedom. “Perfect love casts out fear” is a promise we are given in scripture. Wherever we feel fear, we might invite God to sow love… envision the place of your fear and see God planting a seed of love in that spot.
Then we can sit with the sparrows and watch our fear wither like a weed and the love grow strong and beautiful, knowing that God is keeping an eye on us... and counting the hairs on our heads, however few or many there may be.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
“Have no fear of them,” Jesus says, as he tells his followers of the enemies they may encounter on God’s mission. “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
So, God knows the number of hairs on our heads (what if you're bald?) and values us even more than precious sparrows. That does not mean God promises us physical protection. (Read Psalm 79 sometime, and remember that most of the people to whom Jesus was speaking died a martyr’s death.) It may mean simply that we are of infinite value to God, whose love for us is not diminished by our physical death.
It is a hard balance we seek as followers of the One who promised eternal life: to live fully in this life, loving its gifts and pursuing God’s mission in the world, while holding this life lightly, knowing it is not our final destination. People who have had near-death experiences often say they no longer fear death. And it is the fear of death that so often holds us back from fully living our lives.
Jesus is not minimizing the trauma of physical death, I don’t think. He is inviting us to weigh that against the greater trauma of spiritual death, apathy or even allegiance to that enemy who seeks to degrade and destroy God's creatures. If fear of death, or fear of losing income or time or reputation keeps us from giving our hearts to God, we place ourselves in spiritual peril. Following Jesus does not mean that nothing else in our lives matters; it means we gradually allow ourselves to put God first, above every other thing and person who claims our love. It’s not either-or; it’s both-and… and in the order of priority. God comes first.
And if God comes first, it lowers the stakes for everything else. We can be more confident taking risks when we value our God-Life more than our physical life. Not caring so much about our physical existence – while still investing in it; I did say it was a balancing act – sets us free to discover who we most fully are, how exquisitely and uniquely we are made. Rather than seeing Jesus’ words as warning, might we take them as invitation to greater freedom?
Today let's examine what holds us back from making God our number one priority, if God is not. What fears impede our proclaiming our allegiance to God in Christ?
If we can name our fears, we can invite the Holy Spirit to transform them into freedom. “Perfect love casts out fear” is a promise we are given in scripture. Wherever we feel fear, we might invite God to sow love… envision the place of your fear and see God planting a seed of love in that spot.
Then we can sit with the sparrows and watch our fear wither like a weed and the love grow strong and beautiful, knowing that God is keeping an eye on us... and counting the hairs on our heads, however few or many there may be.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-15-26 - The Un-Prosperity Gospel
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Would you have gone on this mission if Jesus asked you? His words to his followers as he sends them out to proclaim the good news and heal the sick are full of warnings about unwelcoming communities, hostile audiences and even persecution. He says the challenges he encountered would also come to those who went forth in his name – master and disciple are equal in the sight of detractors: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!”
It’s a wonder any of them went. Would facing danger for proclaiming Christ embolden us – or send us into hiding?
Some preachers build huge congregations and rake in loads of cash promising prosperity and good fortune for those who put Jesus first – often defined as making large donations to the pastor’s ministry. I sometimes wonder if they’re right; their churches sure seem blessed. Then I remember Jesus never promised anything but love and an odd kind of joy amidst adversity in this life, and an eternity of relationship in the next. And he promised his presence with us throughout, no matter what.
That is where I suggest we rest this week as we read through another challenging passage: by opening ourselves to Jesus’ presence. That is where all ministry in his name begins – being filled with his Spirit.
Today, let’s take a few minutes to sit quietly, offering thanks for the gifts of the week past, repentance for our failures to demonstrate love, and naming those things that worry us about the week to come. And then let’s pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” (an ancient formulation is “Maranatha!”). And wait. See how Jesus draws near, or what comes up in you as you sit in stillness.
The prosperity preachers are right about one thing: cultivating an expectation of blessing yields blessing. God’s “yes” comes in many forms, not only material wealth. As we are open to it, look for it, name it, we will experience it more often, and tell what we’ve experienced. And then, whether we’re in the midst of wolves or sleepy sheep, we can proclaim our good news, “The Life of God has come near to you!”
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Would you have gone on this mission if Jesus asked you? His words to his followers as he sends them out to proclaim the good news and heal the sick are full of warnings about unwelcoming communities, hostile audiences and even persecution. He says the challenges he encountered would also come to those who went forth in his name – master and disciple are equal in the sight of detractors: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!”
It’s a wonder any of them went. Would facing danger for proclaiming Christ embolden us – or send us into hiding?
Some preachers build huge congregations and rake in loads of cash promising prosperity and good fortune for those who put Jesus first – often defined as making large donations to the pastor’s ministry. I sometimes wonder if they’re right; their churches sure seem blessed. Then I remember Jesus never promised anything but love and an odd kind of joy amidst adversity in this life, and an eternity of relationship in the next. And he promised his presence with us throughout, no matter what.
That is where I suggest we rest this week as we read through another challenging passage: by opening ourselves to Jesus’ presence. That is where all ministry in his name begins – being filled with his Spirit.
Today, let’s take a few minutes to sit quietly, offering thanks for the gifts of the week past, repentance for our failures to demonstrate love, and naming those things that worry us about the week to come. And then let’s pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” (an ancient formulation is “Maranatha!”). And wait. See how Jesus draws near, or what comes up in you as you sit in stillness.
The prosperity preachers are right about one thing: cultivating an expectation of blessing yields blessing. God’s “yes” comes in many forms, not only material wealth. As we are open to it, look for it, name it, we will experience it more often, and tell what we’ve experienced. And then, whether we’re in the midst of wolves or sleepy sheep, we can proclaim our good news, “The Life of God has come near to you!”
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-12-26 - Are We Disciples of Jesus Christ?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Our gospel reading this week has Jesus sending his new disciples out on their first mission trip – to go to all the towns and villages he will visit, proclaim the good news that God is near, and heal the sick. Oh yeah, and cast out demons and raise the dead, as needed. And don’t take any baggage or money – just rely on the hospitality you find. If you’re not welcomed, hit the road and find some place that wants you. And if you get arrested or worse, don’t worry – God will be with you and tell you what to say.
How do we interpret these instructions in our day? Some Christ-followers take these words at face value and go out to share the Good News of God’s love. But more of us stay home, busy with work and family. Our “going in the name of Christ” mostly means going to church and maybe engaging in volunteer activities there or for other organizations whose values align with ours. Few of us are out blazing new trails, telling our stories, healing the sick. What do we do with these instructions for Jesus’ road warriors when we’re not out there and may have no intention of altering our priorities?
Let's start with the call to proclaim Good News. If we don’t know what’s good about this Good News, we don’t have much of a message to share. Jesus said the Good News was about freedom, release, forgiveness, healing, the inbreaking of God’s life into this world. Where have you experienced those things in your spiritual life? What stories flow from those experiences? With whom might you share those stories?
Then there’s the “doing” part – healing, raising, releasing, forgiving:
Our gospel reading this week has Jesus sending his new disciples out on their first mission trip – to go to all the towns and villages he will visit, proclaim the good news that God is near, and heal the sick. Oh yeah, and cast out demons and raise the dead, as needed. And don’t take any baggage or money – just rely on the hospitality you find. If you’re not welcomed, hit the road and find some place that wants you. And if you get arrested or worse, don’t worry – God will be with you and tell you what to say.
How do we interpret these instructions in our day? Some Christ-followers take these words at face value and go out to share the Good News of God’s love. But more of us stay home, busy with work and family. Our “going in the name of Christ” mostly means going to church and maybe engaging in volunteer activities there or for other organizations whose values align with ours. Few of us are out blazing new trails, telling our stories, healing the sick. What do we do with these instructions for Jesus’ road warriors when we’re not out there and may have no intention of altering our priorities?
Let's start with the call to proclaim Good News. If we don’t know what’s good about this Good News, we don’t have much of a message to share. Jesus said the Good News was about freedom, release, forgiveness, healing, the inbreaking of God’s life into this world. Where have you experienced those things in your spiritual life? What stories flow from those experiences? With whom might you share those stories?
Then there’s the “doing” part – healing, raising, releasing, forgiving:
- Where and when in your life do you offer those ministries that Jesus said were integral to living the Good News?
- Is there anyone with whom you pray for healing?
- Anyone who you remind of their status as beloved no matter what they’ve done or said, or not done or said?
- Are there dead places you’ve helped bring God’s Life to? Any that are calling to you now?
These are the “what’s” – proclaiming the Realm of God, healing the sick. Jesus also talked a lot about the “how” and the “how not.” Most notably he said not to take any resources with us, to rely solely on provision from God and from the people among whom we go. That is probably the most challenging part of Jesus’ teaching for me and folks I know. I don’t see us untethering ourselves from our financial and emotional security systems anytime soon. Are we any good at all to Jesus, or to the people who need to hear of his love?
Might we find small ways to do this, trying to get to know our neighbors or people around us who have acute needs, not offering gifts or advice, but simply as people, building relationships that can lead to community, and seeing where the Spirit takes us?
The harvest is still plentiful, and the laborers are still few. Folks around us are still harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus doesn’t ask us to go to them out of guilt, but out of excitement at the joy of being his followers, and anticipating blessings. Are we his disciples?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Might we find small ways to do this, trying to get to know our neighbors or people around us who have acute needs, not offering gifts or advice, but simply as people, building relationships that can lead to community, and seeing where the Spirit takes us?
The harvest is still plentiful, and the laborers are still few. Folks around us are still harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus doesn’t ask us to go to them out of guilt, but out of excitement at the joy of being his followers, and anticipating blessings. Are we his disciples?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-11-26 - Wise As Serpents
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Adversity is part of the deal when we become ministers of the Gospel, especially when we invite people to re-examine long-standing beliefs and traditions. Jesus uses a potent image to warn his disciples about the challenges they will face as they proceed: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.”
The “wolves” for Jesus' disciples in this scenario are fellow Jews, in particular religious leaders benefiting from the status quo. Jesus knew they would oppose him and put obstacles in the way of his followers. He suggests meeting such opposition with a tricky balance of cunning and transparency.
It’s not so hard to fathom what it means to be “innocent as doves” – it means to have an agenda of peace and goodwill, be straightforward about your message and your aim. If we think of sharing our faith or introducing people to Christ as we’ve come to know him, it means being clear that this is part of who we are. If we’re sincere about building relationships AND about letting our spiritual selves be part of the encounter, we’re being innocent as doves.
Jesus’ exhortation to be “wise as serpents” is harder to parse. Where does being canny morph into cunning? Let's consider what attributes of serpents we might adopt as we move out in mission. One is their ability to move quickly and nimbly and with great flexibility. They are low to the ground, able to get where they need to be without drawing a lot of attention to themselves. So we might show up at opportune moments, and maneuver with grace around those who would shut us up or tell us to leave our religion out of it. We might be alert to opportunities to share our spiritual lives and quick about seizing those moments where appropriate.
Jesus was telling his followers that there would be resistance to their ministry which might well harden into persecution – and that no matter what, God would be with them, speaking his message through them: "When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
I doubt we need worry about being handed over to councils and flogged. We might be more apt to encounter resistance in the form of indifference or social pressure not to be “so religious." Whatever happens, Jesus’ counsel to be both winsome and wise, gentle and canny is as apt for us as it was for his disciples. We have a story to tell, an invitation to offer, an introduction to make – let’s not let anything stop us from making Jesus' love known.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Adversity is part of the deal when we become ministers of the Gospel, especially when we invite people to re-examine long-standing beliefs and traditions. Jesus uses a potent image to warn his disciples about the challenges they will face as they proceed: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.”
The “wolves” for Jesus' disciples in this scenario are fellow Jews, in particular religious leaders benefiting from the status quo. Jesus knew they would oppose him and put obstacles in the way of his followers. He suggests meeting such opposition with a tricky balance of cunning and transparency.
It’s not so hard to fathom what it means to be “innocent as doves” – it means to have an agenda of peace and goodwill, be straightforward about your message and your aim. If we think of sharing our faith or introducing people to Christ as we’ve come to know him, it means being clear that this is part of who we are. If we’re sincere about building relationships AND about letting our spiritual selves be part of the encounter, we’re being innocent as doves.
Jesus’ exhortation to be “wise as serpents” is harder to parse. Where does being canny morph into cunning? Let's consider what attributes of serpents we might adopt as we move out in mission. One is their ability to move quickly and nimbly and with great flexibility. They are low to the ground, able to get where they need to be without drawing a lot of attention to themselves. So we might show up at opportune moments, and maneuver with grace around those who would shut us up or tell us to leave our religion out of it. We might be alert to opportunities to share our spiritual lives and quick about seizing those moments where appropriate.
Jesus was telling his followers that there would be resistance to their ministry which might well harden into persecution – and that no matter what, God would be with them, speaking his message through them: "When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
I doubt we need worry about being handed over to councils and flogged. We might be more apt to encounter resistance in the form of indifference or social pressure not to be “so religious." Whatever happens, Jesus’ counsel to be both winsome and wise, gentle and canny is as apt for us as it was for his disciples. We have a story to tell, an invitation to offer, an introduction to make – let’s not let anything stop us from making Jesus' love known.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-10-26 - Packing Light
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It is packing season – summer vacations, weekend getaways; many of us will be taking down our suitcases and tote bags and deciding what to bring along and what to leave behind. What we pack depends largely on where we’re going – a weekend at the beach may call for shorts and t-shirts, while packing for a wedding can require five pairs of shoes.
And what if we’re packing for a mission trip? Jesus says, “Don’t. Just go.” His instructions to his disciples are perplexing: “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”
He wants them to go out without any resources or safety net, to rely completely on the hospitality of those to whom they are sent. “Wait a minute,” they may have thought – “I thought we were bringing the gift. Now you want us to ask them to take us in and feed us, so we can preach the gospel to them? What’s that about?”
Maybe it’s about vulnerability. Maybe it’s about mutuality, not going to people with the resources or answers we think they need, but inviting them into relationship in which they can meet Jesus. Maybe it’s about allowing people to give to us, so that that we’re sharing on level ground, not from a place of power or control.
And for the ones who carry the Gospel to others, it is also an invitation to build the kind of trust muscles we need in God's service. Having no money or change of clothes, no toothbrush or even a staff to lean on is an invitation to lean totally on God’s provision and love. “Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?” we ask baptismal candidates. It is very hard to put our whole trust in anything, let alone a force we can know but not see or feel. But that’s the kind of faith Jesus invites us to grow.
When have you been in a situation where you had to rely totally on God? Where you couldn’t see what good was going to come, and could only trust that it would? These are trust-building opportunities.
It is not easy, but the testimony of those who live this way is that God comes through, again and again, often in completely unforeseen ways, often through the very people they thought they were there to help. When we break down the "us" and "them" and become just "us," all kinds of mutual giving becomes possible.
This story was about being sent on mission. Perhaps it is also an invitation to live more lightly always, less encumbered with stuff and space and security. Every day we have an invitation, right in our own lives, to simplify, to free up.
And every day we have opportunities to go to someone in the name of Christ, seeing what meals are provided to us when we don’t try to get them for ourselves. We don’t get to set the menu, but we will be fed. That’s the life of faith.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
It is packing season – summer vacations, weekend getaways; many of us will be taking down our suitcases and tote bags and deciding what to bring along and what to leave behind. What we pack depends largely on where we’re going – a weekend at the beach may call for shorts and t-shirts, while packing for a wedding can require five pairs of shoes.
And what if we’re packing for a mission trip? Jesus says, “Don’t. Just go.” His instructions to his disciples are perplexing: “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”
He wants them to go out without any resources or safety net, to rely completely on the hospitality of those to whom they are sent. “Wait a minute,” they may have thought – “I thought we were bringing the gift. Now you want us to ask them to take us in and feed us, so we can preach the gospel to them? What’s that about?”
Maybe it’s about vulnerability. Maybe it’s about mutuality, not going to people with the resources or answers we think they need, but inviting them into relationship in which they can meet Jesus. Maybe it’s about allowing people to give to us, so that that we’re sharing on level ground, not from a place of power or control.
And for the ones who carry the Gospel to others, it is also an invitation to build the kind of trust muscles we need in God's service. Having no money or change of clothes, no toothbrush or even a staff to lean on is an invitation to lean totally on God’s provision and love. “Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?” we ask baptismal candidates. It is very hard to put our whole trust in anything, let alone a force we can know but not see or feel. But that’s the kind of faith Jesus invites us to grow.
When have you been in a situation where you had to rely totally on God? Where you couldn’t see what good was going to come, and could only trust that it would? These are trust-building opportunities.
It is not easy, but the testimony of those who live this way is that God comes through, again and again, often in completely unforeseen ways, often through the very people they thought they were there to help. When we break down the "us" and "them" and become just "us," all kinds of mutual giving becomes possible.
This story was about being sent on mission. Perhaps it is also an invitation to live more lightly always, less encumbered with stuff and space and security. Every day we have an invitation, right in our own lives, to simplify, to free up.
And every day we have opportunities to go to someone in the name of Christ, seeing what meals are provided to us when we don’t try to get them for ourselves. We don’t get to set the menu, but we will be fed. That’s the life of faith.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-9-26 - Know Your Audience
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It’s the first principle of marketing: know your audience, then shape your message and target your approach accordingly. Jesus knew that, sending out his disciples on their first mission foray: These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
More than once Jesus declined ministry to people from ethnicities other than his own Jewish people (though he always relented, and thus expanded his market share…) His teaching and activities suggest that initially he saw his mission as correcting misinterpretations of the Torah, and inviting God’s chosen people back into alignment with God’s love and God’s truth. Perhaps reclaiming the whole world came later; perhaps there were stages.
Similarly, he told his disciples they were sent not to everybody, not to the “other,” but to their own people – the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Eventually, the Spirit made clear that outreach and evangelism to the “other” were to be hallmarks of mission for the church. But maybe in this early stage of training Jesus didn’t want his disciples distracted by cross-cultural chasms or barriers of language and religion. He wanted them to get used to proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, casting out demons, even raising the dead, and to start with those who already knew the basics about the One Holy God of Israel.
The targeting was even more precise: they were to zero in on one "worthy" household, not broadcast their seeds to see where they might take root, but rather plant by hand as opportunities were given: Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.
This last might sound rude, even hostile to us. Jesus may simply have been inviting them to develop a laser-like focus on building relationships with people with whom they shared a language, who might be open to the gift of Good News. The same often applies to us. It can seem easier to share our faith with total strangers than with those who look and talk like us, because maybe we don’t have to be as vulnerable. But more often than not God sends us to those with whom there are fewer barriers to connection.
Who do you know who needs to know Jesus’ love, to hear the Good News of freedom and grace? Pray about how you might go about offering that Good News. And if you are rebuffed, move on to someone else. That’s not the “anointed appointment” God is inviting you to have. The Spirit will lead us, as we ask and are willing, to those who are hungry for what we have to give.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
It’s the first principle of marketing: know your audience, then shape your message and target your approach accordingly. Jesus knew that, sending out his disciples on their first mission foray: These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
More than once Jesus declined ministry to people from ethnicities other than his own Jewish people (though he always relented, and thus expanded his market share…) His teaching and activities suggest that initially he saw his mission as correcting misinterpretations of the Torah, and inviting God’s chosen people back into alignment with God’s love and God’s truth. Perhaps reclaiming the whole world came later; perhaps there were stages.
Similarly, he told his disciples they were sent not to everybody, not to the “other,” but to their own people – the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Eventually, the Spirit made clear that outreach and evangelism to the “other” were to be hallmarks of mission for the church. But maybe in this early stage of training Jesus didn’t want his disciples distracted by cross-cultural chasms or barriers of language and religion. He wanted them to get used to proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, casting out demons, even raising the dead, and to start with those who already knew the basics about the One Holy God of Israel.
The targeting was even more precise: they were to zero in on one "worthy" household, not broadcast their seeds to see where they might take root, but rather plant by hand as opportunities were given: Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.
This last might sound rude, even hostile to us. Jesus may simply have been inviting them to develop a laser-like focus on building relationships with people with whom they shared a language, who might be open to the gift of Good News. The same often applies to us. It can seem easier to share our faith with total strangers than with those who look and talk like us, because maybe we don’t have to be as vulnerable. But more often than not God sends us to those with whom there are fewer barriers to connection.
Who do you know who needs to know Jesus’ love, to hear the Good News of freedom and grace? Pray about how you might go about offering that Good News. And if you are rebuffed, move on to someone else. That’s not the “anointed appointment” God is inviting you to have. The Spirit will lead us, as we ask and are willing, to those who are hungry for what we have to give.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-8-26 - Every and All
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus set out to proclaim the Good News of God’s mission to restore and renew all of creation to wholeness, and to demonstrate that mission by healing every ill person he encountered. As he went, he also responded with compassion to what he saw – people who were harassed and helpless, rudderless, leader-less: Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
The ones he encountered lived in poverty and fear, under the thumb of the Roman occupiers and further oppressed by their own religious leaders. Who do we encounter, who is harassed or helpless? Who is awakening your compassion? How might God be sending you to that person with a message of promise and life? People we meet may more often be harassed by the demands of wealth and stress than poverty, but many are also seeking direction, to be led to safety and green pastures and still waters. They are hungry for meaning, thirsty for purpose and the kind of love only God can give. We have access to these gifts – will we share?
When we read the Gospels with an eye to getting to know Jesus, a principle becomes evident: abundance and fullness. Five vats of water turned into wine, food enough for 5,000. And it applies to healing as well – Matthew tells us Jesus went to all the cities and villages, and cured every disease and every sickness. And he expected and equipped his followers to do the same: Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.
Perhaps Matthew is being hyperbolic, but if Jesus healed every disease and illness he encountered; and if he gave authority over disease and demons to his disciples; and if he empowered those disciples-turned-apostles with the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension; and if we carry on the ministry of those apostles through an unbroken chain of laying on of hands In ordination and confirmation… then why don’t we heal every disease and every illness?
Such “why” questions can get us into trouble. So much in the realm of prayer is mystery, we can only speculate, based on our reading of Scripture and our experience. Maybe we see fewer healings because so often we don’t ask. And sometimes when we ask, it is with meagre faith. Faith needs to reside in the community; I’m not saying each person has to have a full and clear faith – but the community can and should. In my experience, communities that expect healing, that expect answers to prayer, often experience more. The more faith we bring to the exercise of healing prayer, the more healing we see, and the more powerfully the Good News is proclaimed.
Healing is fundamental to what it means to be Christians, apostles bearing witness to the power and love of God unleashed in the world through the Spirit of Christ. It is to be exercised by all of us, all the time, everywhere we go.
I long to see a congregation where it is normal to see people praying with each other at coffee hour, in the parking lot, in each other’s homes, by faith, with thanksgiving. Perhaps when every Christ follower exercises his or her faith in releasing God’s healing in the sick, the infirm, the despairing, all people will be healed. That’s how the Realm of God becomes visible. Through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus set out to proclaim the Good News of God’s mission to restore and renew all of creation to wholeness, and to demonstrate that mission by healing every ill person he encountered. As he went, he also responded with compassion to what he saw – people who were harassed and helpless, rudderless, leader-less: Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
The ones he encountered lived in poverty and fear, under the thumb of the Roman occupiers and further oppressed by their own religious leaders. Who do we encounter, who is harassed or helpless? Who is awakening your compassion? How might God be sending you to that person with a message of promise and life? People we meet may more often be harassed by the demands of wealth and stress than poverty, but many are also seeking direction, to be led to safety and green pastures and still waters. They are hungry for meaning, thirsty for purpose and the kind of love only God can give. We have access to these gifts – will we share?
When we read the Gospels with an eye to getting to know Jesus, a principle becomes evident: abundance and fullness. Five vats of water turned into wine, food enough for 5,000. And it applies to healing as well – Matthew tells us Jesus went to all the cities and villages, and cured every disease and every sickness. And he expected and equipped his followers to do the same: Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.
Perhaps Matthew is being hyperbolic, but if Jesus healed every disease and illness he encountered; and if he gave authority over disease and demons to his disciples; and if he empowered those disciples-turned-apostles with the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension; and if we carry on the ministry of those apostles through an unbroken chain of laying on of hands In ordination and confirmation… then why don’t we heal every disease and every illness?
Such “why” questions can get us into trouble. So much in the realm of prayer is mystery, we can only speculate, based on our reading of Scripture and our experience. Maybe we see fewer healings because so often we don’t ask. And sometimes when we ask, it is with meagre faith. Faith needs to reside in the community; I’m not saying each person has to have a full and clear faith – but the community can and should. In my experience, communities that expect healing, that expect answers to prayer, often experience more. The more faith we bring to the exercise of healing prayer, the more healing we see, and the more powerfully the Good News is proclaimed.
Healing is fundamental to what it means to be Christians, apostles bearing witness to the power and love of God unleashed in the world through the Spirit of Christ. It is to be exercised by all of us, all the time, everywhere we go.
I long to see a congregation where it is normal to see people praying with each other at coffee hour, in the parking lot, in each other’s homes, by faith, with thanksgiving. Perhaps when every Christ follower exercises his or her faith in releasing God’s healing in the sick, the infirm, the despairing, all people will be healed. That’s how the Realm of God becomes visible. Through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-5-26 - Not Dead But Sleeping
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Our four gospels often tell the same stories, but sometimes the details are different. One change Matthew makes to this story probably first set down by Mark is quite dramatic. As Mark tells it, a synagogue leader comes to Jesus in a panic, saying, “‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” But in Matthew’s version the distraught father says, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Dying or already dead? Did Matthew hear a different version of the story, or is he intensifying the miracle he is relating?
In both versions, Jesus gets to the house, after being diverted by the woman with the hemorrhage, and in both versions he sees life: When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.
This father suspected that his daughter's story was not yet over, and Jesus knew her life was not ended, that she was deeply asleep, perhaps in a coma. But what if she were already dead, as her father thought? Jesus raised Lazarus four days after burial; he raised a young man from his funeral bier. Did he raise this little girl or simply heal her? Is there a difference?
Here's a bigger question: Are we to pray for healing in the face of what looks like death? Sometimes… maybe more often than we do. Death is a reality of life, yes, and the power of God to heal is very real and very strong when communities exercise faith. When someone we know is gravely ill, we can ask the Spirit how to pray. If we feel a sense that physical healing can happen, invite the healing stream of God’s love into that person. I specify “physical healing,” because sometimes the healing a person receives is spiritual, preparing them for life after death.
Maybe it’s too limiting to talk only of healing through prayer – God also heals through medicine. I once read an article in the Washington Post about a young woman named April, catatonic for twenty years after having been diagnosed with a rapid and severe onset of schizophrenia. Then doctors discovered she also had lupus, a treatable autoimmune disease that was attacking her brain. As the article says, “After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.” Researchers are finding that autoimmune and inflammatory conditions may be prevalent in patients with various psychiatric syndromes – who can be helped with simple treatment. Sander Markx, the physician treating April said, “These are the forgotten souls. We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”
That is the business we are in as followers of Christ active in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness: bringing people back from places no one thought they could come back from. We are called to see life, even in the face of death. We don’t always know the outcomes of our faith – that’s why it’s called faith; we don’t get a road map or guarantees. But we walk forward anyway. Whether it’s 20 minutes or 20 years, or in the life that follows this one, Life will win.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Our four gospels often tell the same stories, but sometimes the details are different. One change Matthew makes to this story probably first set down by Mark is quite dramatic. As Mark tells it, a synagogue leader comes to Jesus in a panic, saying, “‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” But in Matthew’s version the distraught father says, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Dying or already dead? Did Matthew hear a different version of the story, or is he intensifying the miracle he is relating?
In both versions, Jesus gets to the house, after being diverted by the woman with the hemorrhage, and in both versions he sees life: When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.
This father suspected that his daughter's story was not yet over, and Jesus knew her life was not ended, that she was deeply asleep, perhaps in a coma. But what if she were already dead, as her father thought? Jesus raised Lazarus four days after burial; he raised a young man from his funeral bier. Did he raise this little girl or simply heal her? Is there a difference?
Here's a bigger question: Are we to pray for healing in the face of what looks like death? Sometimes… maybe more often than we do. Death is a reality of life, yes, and the power of God to heal is very real and very strong when communities exercise faith. When someone we know is gravely ill, we can ask the Spirit how to pray. If we feel a sense that physical healing can happen, invite the healing stream of God’s love into that person. I specify “physical healing,” because sometimes the healing a person receives is spiritual, preparing them for life after death.
Maybe it’s too limiting to talk only of healing through prayer – God also heals through medicine. I once read an article in the Washington Post about a young woman named April, catatonic for twenty years after having been diagnosed with a rapid and severe onset of schizophrenia. Then doctors discovered she also had lupus, a treatable autoimmune disease that was attacking her brain. As the article says, “After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.” Researchers are finding that autoimmune and inflammatory conditions may be prevalent in patients with various psychiatric syndromes – who can be helped with simple treatment. Sander Markx, the physician treating April said, “These are the forgotten souls. We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”
That is the business we are in as followers of Christ active in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness: bringing people back from places no one thought they could come back from. We are called to see life, even in the face of death. We don’t always know the outcomes of our faith – that’s why it’s called faith; we don’t get a road map or guarantees. But we walk forward anyway. Whether it’s 20 minutes or 20 years, or in the life that follows this one, Life will win.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-4-26 - Your Faith Has Made You Well
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This Sunday’s gospel story is a tale with many interruptions. It begins with Jesus inviting a tax collector to join him in ministry, which begets an interrogation from religious authorities about his holiness. As Jesus is making his defense, a synagogue leader pushes through the crowd to fall at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come to his house and heal his daughter, who has just died. Jesus agrees – and the whole crowd follows along, pressing in on Jesus and his disciples.
In this crowd is another person in desperate need of healing, but where the leader could be public about his request, this woman cannot let anyone know. For one thing, she is a woman, a person of little status in that culture. For another, she suffers perpetual bleeding. This not only makes her ill; it renders her ritually unclean – anyone touching her would also be made unclean and thus unable to go to the temple until they’d been cleansed.
So she sets out to “steal a healing,” going low in the crowd, making her way closer and closer to Jesus’ side, so she can just touch the hem of his cloak as he goes past: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
Was this woman only driven by faith – or did she, like many of us, turn to the Healer only when conventional methods failed her? Twelve years with no improvement – and as Luke tells this story, we learn she did consult physicians who were unable to help. Was Jesus the last resort or her best hope?
I love the way this woman, like the distraught father, is determined to get what she needs, and how strongly she believes in Jesus’ power to heal her. I think of her as a base runner stealing third, trying to get to her goal undetected. Her faith is so strong she knows that the merest touch of his clothes will access the power that heals. And her faith is rewarded – Jesus turns, sees her, does not scold or reject her, but says “Take heart, daughter – your faith has made you well.” And at that instant she could feel she was well. What an additional gift to be told it was her own faith that effected her healing.
This is a great mystery – Jesus says these words to more than one person in the Gospels. It suggests that God does not so much do the healing as add power and love to the faith we bring. We want to be careful not to put too much onus on the faith of the person who is sick – in the other story in this week’s gospel it is the faith of the father for his daughter that is rewarded – but it seems there does need to be faith somewhere in the system. The more we bring, the more God has to work with.
Healing has been freely offered to us, a healing stream of living water always flowing in us and around us, into which we can step at will, in faith, in fear, in trust, in doubt. We don’t always see the fullness of the healing we desire in this life. Yet we see a lot more when we do what this woman did – just reach out and take hold.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Sunday’s gospel story is a tale with many interruptions. It begins with Jesus inviting a tax collector to join him in ministry, which begets an interrogation from religious authorities about his holiness. As Jesus is making his defense, a synagogue leader pushes through the crowd to fall at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come to his house and heal his daughter, who has just died. Jesus agrees – and the whole crowd follows along, pressing in on Jesus and his disciples.
In this crowd is another person in desperate need of healing, but where the leader could be public about his request, this woman cannot let anyone know. For one thing, she is a woman, a person of little status in that culture. For another, she suffers perpetual bleeding. This not only makes her ill; it renders her ritually unclean – anyone touching her would also be made unclean and thus unable to go to the temple until they’d been cleansed.
So she sets out to “steal a healing,” going low in the crowd, making her way closer and closer to Jesus’ side, so she can just touch the hem of his cloak as he goes past: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
Was this woman only driven by faith – or did she, like many of us, turn to the Healer only when conventional methods failed her? Twelve years with no improvement – and as Luke tells this story, we learn she did consult physicians who were unable to help. Was Jesus the last resort or her best hope?
I love the way this woman, like the distraught father, is determined to get what she needs, and how strongly she believes in Jesus’ power to heal her. I think of her as a base runner stealing third, trying to get to her goal undetected. Her faith is so strong she knows that the merest touch of his clothes will access the power that heals. And her faith is rewarded – Jesus turns, sees her, does not scold or reject her, but says “Take heart, daughter – your faith has made you well.” And at that instant she could feel she was well. What an additional gift to be told it was her own faith that effected her healing.
This is a great mystery – Jesus says these words to more than one person in the Gospels. It suggests that God does not so much do the healing as add power and love to the faith we bring. We want to be careful not to put too much onus on the faith of the person who is sick – in the other story in this week’s gospel it is the faith of the father for his daughter that is rewarded – but it seems there does need to be faith somewhere in the system. The more we bring, the more God has to work with.
Healing has been freely offered to us, a healing stream of living water always flowing in us and around us, into which we can step at will, in faith, in fear, in trust, in doubt. We don’t always see the fullness of the healing we desire in this life. Yet we see a lot more when we do what this woman did – just reach out and take hold.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-3-26 - Now That's Faith
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In the first part of this week’s gospel passage, Jesus defends his relationships with people considered sinful, saying he had come into this world to save not the righteous, but sinners. This is a point he will make over and over again, directly and in parables. But before he has a chance to develop his argument to the religious leaders suspicious of him, he is interrupted by a religious leader who has great faith in him: While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.
Now that is a person of faith. That is a person with clear vision of who Jesus is. I once led prayer with a group of children and asked them what they would like to pray for. Allie’s hand shot up. “I want to pray for my bunny.” “Sure,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?” “She’s still dead…”
Allie and this synagogue leader were way ahead of me in faith – they knew that Jesus’ power to heal could restore life even in those who had died. Jesus doesn’t challenge the man’s assumptions – he heads off with him to his home. But he doesn’t get very far before he is interrupted again, also by someone whose faith in him was stronger than most: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”
This woman’s faith is so strong, she doesn’t even need to talk with Jesus. She reasons that just touching his clothes will transfer healing power into her, and she is right – a moment later Jesus stops in the crowd and asks, “Who touched me? I felt power go out from me.”
Do you know anyone with faith like these two, who have the conviction that Jesus’ power can accomplish the healing they so badly desire? Would you think that person nuts or faithful?
What stops us from believing so completely? Often it is because the record of prayers not answered as we wanted speaks more loudly to our spirits than the record of God’s faithfulness and love. When we focus on what God has done and can do; when we wire ourselves to expect blessing as did this frantic father and long-suffering woman, we might find ourselves believing as powerfully as they do.
We’ll look tomorrow at the outcome of their faith. Today I invite you to consider where in your life you might step out on a limb of faith. What healing or reconciliation or blessing do you desire more than anything else? Maybe something you’ve lost hope in, that seems to have died? Something you have suffered with for twelve years or longer?
Can you imagine running after Jesus and asking him to stop what he’s doing and come to your house to restore that lost love? Or to sneak up on him in a crowd and invite his power and love to flow into you? What might happen with that prayer?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In the first part of this week’s gospel passage, Jesus defends his relationships with people considered sinful, saying he had come into this world to save not the righteous, but sinners. This is a point he will make over and over again, directly and in parables. But before he has a chance to develop his argument to the religious leaders suspicious of him, he is interrupted by a religious leader who has great faith in him: While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.
Now that is a person of faith. That is a person with clear vision of who Jesus is. I once led prayer with a group of children and asked them what they would like to pray for. Allie’s hand shot up. “I want to pray for my bunny.” “Sure,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?” “She’s still dead…”
Allie and this synagogue leader were way ahead of me in faith – they knew that Jesus’ power to heal could restore life even in those who had died. Jesus doesn’t challenge the man’s assumptions – he heads off with him to his home. But he doesn’t get very far before he is interrupted again, also by someone whose faith in him was stronger than most: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”
This woman’s faith is so strong, she doesn’t even need to talk with Jesus. She reasons that just touching his clothes will transfer healing power into her, and she is right – a moment later Jesus stops in the crowd and asks, “Who touched me? I felt power go out from me.”
Do you know anyone with faith like these two, who have the conviction that Jesus’ power can accomplish the healing they so badly desire? Would you think that person nuts or faithful?
What stops us from believing so completely? Often it is because the record of prayers not answered as we wanted speaks more loudly to our spirits than the record of God’s faithfulness and love. When we focus on what God has done and can do; when we wire ourselves to expect blessing as did this frantic father and long-suffering woman, we might find ourselves believing as powerfully as they do.
We’ll look tomorrow at the outcome of their faith. Today I invite you to consider where in your life you might step out on a limb of faith. What healing or reconciliation or blessing do you desire more than anything else? Maybe something you’ve lost hope in, that seems to have died? Something you have suffered with for twelve years or longer?
Can you imagine running after Jesus and asking him to stop what he’s doing and come to your house to restore that lost love? Or to sneak up on him in a crowd and invite his power and love to flow into you? What might happen with that prayer?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-2-26 - Tainted By Association
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The story about Jesus calling Matthew from his tax booth to become a disciple is about as short as a story can be – two sentences. As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Matthew (the author of the gospel, who was probably not the subject of the story) does not tell us why Jesus called this tax collector, nor does he give us a clue as to why Matthew gets up and follows without a word or question. Perhaps the gospel writer is less interested in these questions than in the impact this invitation had on the people around Jesus. This mixing with notorious “sinners” like tax collectors was getting Jesus a bad rep: And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”
Why should they care who Jesus eats with? Well, there was a strain of “holiness” teaching running through Jewish scripture and practice that asserted that even associating with anything or anyone unclean put your own purity at risk. This strain raises its legalistic head in ultra-conservative circles of any religion, and is usually accompanied by a conviction that the person doing the judging has no sin of which to repent. In the eyes of the Pharisees and scribes, constantly trying to discern whether he was a charlatan or the real deal, Jesus was tainted by his willingness to hang around the “sinful.”
But there is another way of thinking that we also find in the Hebrew bible, which invites “outsiders” to become insiders, encourages the faithful to welcome the stranger and alien, the “unwhole” and the impaired (who were not welcome in the temple courts). Jesus clearly saw there was more good to be done inviting the “unholy” into transforming relationship, and went so far as to suggest these were his true mission: But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
The story about Jesus calling Matthew from his tax booth to become a disciple is about as short as a story can be – two sentences. As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Matthew (the author of the gospel, who was probably not the subject of the story) does not tell us why Jesus called this tax collector, nor does he give us a clue as to why Matthew gets up and follows without a word or question. Perhaps the gospel writer is less interested in these questions than in the impact this invitation had on the people around Jesus. This mixing with notorious “sinners” like tax collectors was getting Jesus a bad rep: And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”
Why should they care who Jesus eats with? Well, there was a strain of “holiness” teaching running through Jewish scripture and practice that asserted that even associating with anything or anyone unclean put your own purity at risk. This strain raises its legalistic head in ultra-conservative circles of any religion, and is usually accompanied by a conviction that the person doing the judging has no sin of which to repent. In the eyes of the Pharisees and scribes, constantly trying to discern whether he was a charlatan or the real deal, Jesus was tainted by his willingness to hang around the “sinful.”
But there is another way of thinking that we also find in the Hebrew bible, which invites “outsiders” to become insiders, encourages the faithful to welcome the stranger and alien, the “unwhole” and the impaired (who were not welcome in the temple courts). Jesus clearly saw there was more good to be done inviting the “unholy” into transforming relationship, and went so far as to suggest these were his true mission: But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
- Do you tend to categorize people as “good” or “bad?”
- Which do you feel like on most days – the righteous or a sinner?
- Have you been offered a friendship in which you experienced healing and a feeling of becoming more worthy of love?
- Have you ever invited anyone else into such a transforming relationship?
We are called to mercy, not a slavish devotion to rules and ritual. Our Good News proclaims that Jesus has passed by each one of us and said, “Follow me,” whether or not we felt worthy of that invitation. We become worthy as we walk with him.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-1-26 - Follow Me
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Congratulations – you have made it through the seasons and festivals and holidays that span Christmas through Easter to Pentecost, and have arrived safely at that long stretch we call “Ordinary Time.” From now until Advent, minus a few feast days, we will hear stories from Jesus’ ministry and teaching. We have an opportunity to get to know him better, and to explore our own callings within his ongoing mission.
This week’s passage from Matthew’s gospel contains two stories. Today we’ll look at the first, which is very short as stories go: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Brevity may be a virtue in writing, but this is a little too short. Why did Jesus call this tax collector? Had he had his eye on him for a while, or was it a spontaneous movement of the Spirit? In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus first calls four fishermen to be his disciples. John’s Gospel tells how Philip and Nathaniel got added to the corps. Did Matthew (named Levi in another gospel) come after them, or before? Did Jesus figure a financial guy would come in handy?
Perhaps a more important question is this: Why does Matthew get up without a question, a word, a goodbye, and follow Jesus? Like Peter and Andrew, James and John, he just walks away from his job, his livelihood, presumably his family. Had he already heard of Jesus, or seen him healing, or heard his teaching? Was he looking for a purpose? What was Jesus offering that these people were willing to walk away from their lives to go with him?
And that invites an even deeper question: What would it take for us to follow Jesus this completely? To be a disciple means to take on the discipline of a master. Are we willing to pattern our lives on the Way of Love that Jesus lived and taught?
Perhaps the only way to know the answer to that is to be able to say what it is we are yearning for in the depth of our hearts. When we know that what we yearn for is something that only God can satisfy, rather than all the things and people we chase, hoping they will fill the need, it’s not so hard to walk away. I am guessing that those people Jesus invited to join his mission knew he had something they needed and wouldn’t find anywhere else.
And walking away is not the only movement here. These people to whom Jesus said, “Follow me,” seemingly with no preamble or orientation program, were also walking to. They were walking to Jesus. And then they were walking with Jesus. If we think of it only as “walking away,” we may not want to leave our familiar circumstances and follow. When we experience the joy of walking with Jesus, into his always surprising, sometimes painful, transformative and transformational mission, we don’t even thinking about staying put, even when we don’t know where we are going.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Congratulations – you have made it through the seasons and festivals and holidays that span Christmas through Easter to Pentecost, and have arrived safely at that long stretch we call “Ordinary Time.” From now until Advent, minus a few feast days, we will hear stories from Jesus’ ministry and teaching. We have an opportunity to get to know him better, and to explore our own callings within his ongoing mission.
This week’s passage from Matthew’s gospel contains two stories. Today we’ll look at the first, which is very short as stories go: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Brevity may be a virtue in writing, but this is a little too short. Why did Jesus call this tax collector? Had he had his eye on him for a while, or was it a spontaneous movement of the Spirit? In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus first calls four fishermen to be his disciples. John’s Gospel tells how Philip and Nathaniel got added to the corps. Did Matthew (named Levi in another gospel) come after them, or before? Did Jesus figure a financial guy would come in handy?
Perhaps a more important question is this: Why does Matthew get up without a question, a word, a goodbye, and follow Jesus? Like Peter and Andrew, James and John, he just walks away from his job, his livelihood, presumably his family. Had he already heard of Jesus, or seen him healing, or heard his teaching? Was he looking for a purpose? What was Jesus offering that these people were willing to walk away from their lives to go with him?
And that invites an even deeper question: What would it take for us to follow Jesus this completely? To be a disciple means to take on the discipline of a master. Are we willing to pattern our lives on the Way of Love that Jesus lived and taught?
Perhaps the only way to know the answer to that is to be able to say what it is we are yearning for in the depth of our hearts. When we know that what we yearn for is something that only God can satisfy, rather than all the things and people we chase, hoping they will fill the need, it’s not so hard to walk away. I am guessing that those people Jesus invited to join his mission knew he had something they needed and wouldn’t find anywhere else.
And walking away is not the only movement here. These people to whom Jesus said, “Follow me,” seemingly with no preamble or orientation program, were also walking to. They were walking to Jesus. And then they were walking with Jesus. If we think of it only as “walking away,” we may not want to leave our familiar circumstances and follow. When we experience the joy of walking with Jesus, into his always surprising, sometimes painful, transformative and transformational mission, we don’t even thinking about staying put, even when we don’t know where we are going.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
5-29-26 - With You, Always
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It's one of the great promises God makes to us: God's presence, always. Jesus does not send us off alone with the charge to spread the Good News – he comes with us through His Spirit poured out on all people. Jesus’ last words on that mountain were, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Yet sometimes it can be hard to feel his presence. Here are a few ways I know of to draw on that promise:
Prayer – when we allow our minds to quiet and invite the Spirit to fill us, it is the Spirit of Christ who comes to us. The visually inclined can ask Jesus to show up in our imagination in some place and form that resonates for us, where we can talk and listen to him - and just hang out.
Praise – when we release our spirits in praise, as we sing or admire beauty or enjoy an intimate meal, we feel a presence in us and around us. That is Christ, joining our praises.
Eucharist – We offer these words and actions to remember him, because he said to… and remember means more than "recall." It also means to reconstitute the members of a body. We receive the life of Christ in those signs of his body and blood – and he has promised to be there with us.
In the Hungry and Forgotten – Jesus said when we feed and clothe and visit and tend to those in need, we do it for him. Doing ministry among people with obvious needs – and many assets, don’t forget – is a wonderful way to be with Jesus. Ask him in advance to show himself to you.
Ministries of Power – Jesus told his followers that when the Spirit came, they would do even greater works than they’d seen in him. When we pray for healing or reconciliation or exercise spiritual power in Jesus’ name, we are invoking his presence with us.
What are the ways you sense the presence of Jesus? Are there times you feel abandoned anyway? Those are normal, especially when a lot of things are going wrong. God invites us to pray through them and pipe up and say, “What happened to, ‘I will be with you always?’ Not feeling it…”
Always is a long time. We can experience Christ with us moment by moment, and expand our capacity to feel him in the challenging spaces. This is how we prepare ourselves to be with him. Always and for ever.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
It's one of the great promises God makes to us: God's presence, always. Jesus does not send us off alone with the charge to spread the Good News – he comes with us through His Spirit poured out on all people. Jesus’ last words on that mountain were, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Yet sometimes it can be hard to feel his presence. Here are a few ways I know of to draw on that promise:
Prayer – when we allow our minds to quiet and invite the Spirit to fill us, it is the Spirit of Christ who comes to us. The visually inclined can ask Jesus to show up in our imagination in some place and form that resonates for us, where we can talk and listen to him - and just hang out.
Praise – when we release our spirits in praise, as we sing or admire beauty or enjoy an intimate meal, we feel a presence in us and around us. That is Christ, joining our praises.
Eucharist – We offer these words and actions to remember him, because he said to… and remember means more than "recall." It also means to reconstitute the members of a body. We receive the life of Christ in those signs of his body and blood – and he has promised to be there with us.
In the Hungry and Forgotten – Jesus said when we feed and clothe and visit and tend to those in need, we do it for him. Doing ministry among people with obvious needs – and many assets, don’t forget – is a wonderful way to be with Jesus. Ask him in advance to show himself to you.
Ministries of Power – Jesus told his followers that when the Spirit came, they would do even greater works than they’d seen in him. When we pray for healing or reconciliation or exercise spiritual power in Jesus’ name, we are invoking his presence with us.
What are the ways you sense the presence of Jesus? Are there times you feel abandoned anyway? Those are normal, especially when a lot of things are going wrong. God invites us to pray through them and pipe up and say, “What happened to, ‘I will be with you always?’ Not feeling it…”
Always is a long time. We can experience Christ with us moment by moment, and expand our capacity to feel him in the challenging spaces. This is how we prepare ourselves to be with him. Always and for ever.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
5-28-26 - The Great Co-Mission
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Christians reply, “Okay, we have our orders - here we go to save some souls!” And there the church has gone, for over 2,000 years, carrying the Good News to the ends of the earth. In the late 1970s my church in New York held a multi-day preaching revival mission, keynoted by a Ugandan bishop, Festo Kavingere, come to save the souls of secular New Yorkers. The ends of the earth (from our Western perspective, anyway…) had come to us. The Great Commission is our job.
Yet when we understand God’s mission as a job, an order to follow, we lose sight of perhaps the most important word: “Co.” Co-mission means mission with. Jesus never intended his followers to take the hand-off from him and run with the ball on our own. He promised His Spirit would be in us, confirming the power of our words in signs and wonders. When the Great Commission runs off the rails it’s usually because the “co” got dropped and it became just mission. Our mission. My mission.
Co-mission means we are always partners in God’s mission, not recruiting God as a silent partner to bless our missions. When we are partners in God’s mission, we can be sure that we’re in God’s will and that good fruit is promised. God is always creating new life, restoring wholeness – so we can be sure God always has a mission for us to join. God seems, in fact, to rely on our joining in, or that thing doesn’t get accomplished. It’s like an electrical current needing a conductor to carry it – we’re the wire, folks, literally wired in to what God has already purposed.
How do we know when it’s God’s mission? It will resemble Christ’s missions. Look around you: Where do you see energy and passion that result in people being blessed, healed, fed, reconciled? There’s God’s mission. Where do you see hunger, fear, injustice or oppression? God may be inviting you to join God there.
Where do you see needs, frustration, wheels spinning? Maybe that’s a place where mission is being undertaken without God, like a wire disconnected from the current. Sometimes much of what I spend my time and energy on does not feel like God’s mission at all, but rather my attempt to help prop up old conveyor belts for human mission initiatives, my own included.
God’s mission is not about meeting needs, though needs are often met as we go about God’s mission. God’s mission is about bringing life to things that are dead or on their way there. God’s mission is about freedom and peace. We are about God’s mission when we feel our sails full of Holy Spirit wind; when we don’t know the route but know we’re going somewhere blessed.
Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Christians reply, “Okay, we have our orders - here we go to save some souls!” And there the church has gone, for over 2,000 years, carrying the Good News to the ends of the earth. In the late 1970s my church in New York held a multi-day preaching revival mission, keynoted by a Ugandan bishop, Festo Kavingere, come to save the souls of secular New Yorkers. The ends of the earth (from our Western perspective, anyway…) had come to us. The Great Commission is our job.
Yet when we understand God’s mission as a job, an order to follow, we lose sight of perhaps the most important word: “Co.” Co-mission means mission with. Jesus never intended his followers to take the hand-off from him and run with the ball on our own. He promised His Spirit would be in us, confirming the power of our words in signs and wonders. When the Great Commission runs off the rails it’s usually because the “co” got dropped and it became just mission. Our mission. My mission.
Co-mission means we are always partners in God’s mission, not recruiting God as a silent partner to bless our missions. When we are partners in God’s mission, we can be sure that we’re in God’s will and that good fruit is promised. God is always creating new life, restoring wholeness – so we can be sure God always has a mission for us to join. God seems, in fact, to rely on our joining in, or that thing doesn’t get accomplished. It’s like an electrical current needing a conductor to carry it – we’re the wire, folks, literally wired in to what God has already purposed.
How do we know when it’s God’s mission? It will resemble Christ’s missions. Look around you: Where do you see energy and passion that result in people being blessed, healed, fed, reconciled? There’s God’s mission. Where do you see hunger, fear, injustice or oppression? God may be inviting you to join God there.
Where do you see needs, frustration, wheels spinning? Maybe that’s a place where mission is being undertaken without God, like a wire disconnected from the current. Sometimes much of what I spend my time and energy on does not feel like God’s mission at all, but rather my attempt to help prop up old conveyor belts for human mission initiatives, my own included.
God’s mission is not about meeting needs, though needs are often met as we go about God’s mission. God’s mission is about bringing life to things that are dead or on their way there. God’s mission is about freedom and peace. We are about God’s mission when we feel our sails full of Holy Spirit wind; when we don’t know the route but know we’re going somewhere blessed.
- When do you feel you are “co-missioning” with God rather than “missioning” on your own?
- When do you feel your passion and energy rise in ministry? Start noticing what gets your attention, and when your energy intensifies when you're taking about something. That's always a clue.
- You might ask God to wire you into a mission, large or small – and to give you a clue that’s what’s happening by letting you see some fruit.
If God is always on the move, and if God needs us to carry the current of what God wants to accomplish… think how often God may want us just to show up and say, “Here I am. Use me.” That’s the Greatest Co-mission of all.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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