End of Year Note: With the end of this year, the Daily Devotionals from Peachtree Presbyterian will take a bit of a hiatus. We all have so much to be thankful for, not only at this time of year, but in general, and particularly in our spiritual lives. With transition taking place in the leadership of Peachtree, the future of these devotions is still being worked out. We know how much they mean to so many, and we look forward to a new beginning sometime in 2017!

For some reason, when I started sending out these Peachtree Daily Devotionals, I kept count of them by weeks. This marks the 29th week and this reflection is the 145th and final devotional. I have been grateful for the opportunity to continue Mark Crumpler’s tradition and to spend a few minutes with you each day in this written form. At his retirement, Garrison Keillor said, “You get old and discover there are no answers, only stories.” Abraham Heschel once wrote, “

Between his infancy and the age of 30, the Bible describes only one event in Jesus’ life. We are told that it was His family’s custom to attend the Passover festival in Jerusalem. The distance between Nazareth and Jerusalem was about 70 miles and would have taken several days. But the journey was probably a happy annual pilgrimage in the company of many family and friends. In his 12th year, Jesus was so preoccupied by activities in the temple that He missed the family’s departu