Satan Bruised Under Your Feet

It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Those words are older than the letter. They are spoken in Genesis, in a garden, to a snake.

Paul is at the end of the longest thing he ever wrote, dictating to a scribe named Tertius who slips a greeting of his own into the text two verses later. The page before this is a list of ordinary names: Phebe, who is carrying the letter to Rome herself; Priscilla and Aquila, who made tents; Rufus and his mother, who Paul says has been a mother to him too; a household of slaves belonging to a man called Narcissus. Then a warning about people causing divisions among them. Then this.

Notice who does the crushing. The God of peace, which is not the title anyone would have chosen for that sentence, and which is exactly the point. Notice also where it happens. Under your feet. Not overhead, not at the far end of history. Under the feet of Phebe and Tertius and the slaves in that household, on the floors they were standing on while the letter was read aloud to them. And shortly is Paul's own word for the timing.

So take the ground you are actually standing on: the kitchen, the commute, the desk where at four in the afternoon the old thought reliably finds you. Stop waiting to feel strong enough first. Ask the God of peace to do the crushing there, and get on with the next ordinary duty while he does it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 271 is How Shall I Give Thee Up (Hosea 11:8).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna