If there is any virtue

The day felt bleak the sky was gray. The building I went to was as gray as the sky and encircled by a barbed wire fence. I was buzzed into the building and told to wait. I waited in the cold room surrounded by unfriendly signs for over two hours. While I waited I thought about the verses I had been meditating on in Philippians. In Philippians there is a list of things we are told to think about. On this day I was filtering my thought through the part of the verse that says, “If there is any virtue.” I looked around at my depressing surroundings and wondered how anyone could see any virtue in a place like this.

My meditation became a prayer. I had two hours to wait I had two hours to ponder and to pray. The promise I find in the verses in Philippians is that when I think about the things God tells me to think about I will experience the God of peace. Can the God of peace be found in a prison?

Finally, the woman behind the desk called my name. I sat in front of the monitor, pick up the receiver and our visit began.  The message I brought was simple, “I care about you.” I had come to bring a message of hope. I had come to remind her that there is a Savior, there is a Redeemer.

As I drove away that day I realized that the answer to my prayer was in the realization that when Jesus came He came to set the prisoner free. He came not to those who were well but to those who were sick and needed a physician. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly. “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 5:9, 10)

Lord Jesus, when my mind becomes clouded by the sorrow that I see help me to meditate on what is truly virtuous that You came to seek and save the lost.