Hello, Bridge Down Church, and those of you joining us online, my name is Bethany Allen,

and this is the Bridge Down Daily for Tuesday, April 28th.

This week I've been thinking about a phrase from the book of First Thessalonians.

They are, Paul writes, make it your ambition to lead a quiet and peaceful life.

The phrase has circled in my mind what feels like a thousand times.

Now, of course, sometimes things like this just appear in your thinking.

But I knew at least at some level it was rooted in something deeper.

Quarantine for me, for both better and worse, has confronted some dreams I've had for my life

in a new way. Both dreams I've seen come to fruition, and those that I still long to see.

I was on the phone with a friend this week from Seminary who I've known for over 10 years,

and on the call I was asked, what else? What else, Bethany? What's next for you?

What else are you thinking about and working towards or hoping for?

And before I could say something specific to my total and complete surprise,

I took a breath and blurred it out. I think what I really want is more of a quiet and peaceful life.

I know it sounds like something a pastor would say. But even as I said those words,

I knew they were significant to me. Maybe it was because I had been meditating on them this week

or maybe it was an act of the spirit, but either way as I spoke them, they felt like a sobering

and new prayer for my life. In 1st Thessalonians 4, Paul makes a plea to the Thessalonian believers,

and in it he exhorts them to continue to grow and to live lives that please God.

In this chapter specifically, he exhorts them to please God with how they live,

to welcome things like sanctification or the purification of their life as it pertains to holiness,

to love one another. And finally in verse 11, he says to,

...