URC Daily Devotion 4 June 2026

When the River Learns to Give: Proverbs 25:21-26   

If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
    and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
    and the Lord will reward you.
The north wind produces rain,
    and a backbiting tongue, angry looks.
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop
    than in a house shared with a contentious wife.
Like cold water to a thirsty soul,
    so is good news from a far country.
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain
    are the righteous who give way before the wicked.

Reflection

“If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.” This proverb speaks of giving to an enemy, but in truth most of those who thirst are not our enemies. They are our neighbours, people we have failed to see, lives touched by our comfort without our knowing. The distance between us is not hatred but forgetfulness. And when we give water, it is not victory over another life but a remembering of our shared thirst.

I once spoke with a fellow Christian who asked with genuine curiosity why developed countries are expected to provide climate finance to developing countries, and why the church should care about the earth. The question was honest, not hostile, and it has stayed with me. Because beneath it, I heard the confusion of people like us who live well and forget how our comfort rests on the suffering of others.

Justice is not a favour offered by the strong. It is a confession that we have taken too much and a willingness to begin again. When we give bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty, we are not rescuing them. We are being restored ourselves. For every gift of compassion is also a small act of repentance, a way of letting grace return to the place it came from.

The proverb invites us to this simple holiness. Not charity that looks down, but mercy that walks beside. It asks us to open our hands and let the river move again through our common life. Perhaps this is how redemption feels, when the giver and the receiver both find themselves renewed by the same stream of love.

Prayer

God of mercy,
teach us to see the ones we forget.
Keep our hearts open
to the quiet work of Your grace.
When we offer water,
let us also be renewed.
Flow through us
until every life is refreshed
by the same stream of love.
Amen.