Today’s Scripture Reading (March 10, 2026): 2 Kings 7
In 1949, Germany was officially divided. Following World War II, Germany was
divided into “zones of control” between the United States, the United Kingdom,
France, and the Soviet Union. But in 1949, the division was made official. The
areas controlled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France became
the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and the area controlled by the
Soviet Union became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The deep
political and ideological divide was symbolized in 1961 by the construction of
the “Berlin Wall,” which divided the city into East and West Berlin.
By the time I became aware of East and West Berlin and Germany, all of
these events were in the past. As a teenager, the Berlin Wall was simply a
reality of life. It was as if it had always been that way. It was a part of the
history that happened before I was born. I had a National Geographic Map of the
World hanging in my bedroom, which displayed this political reality. Every once
in a while, the idea of German reunification came up, usually in my Social
Studies class. I couldn’t even imagine such a thing. There was no path I could
imagine for Germany to be one country once again. The political divide, to my
young mind, was just too wide.
I was watching from my home on the other side of the world on November 9,
1989, as the Berlin Wall came down. It was probably the only time in my life
when I wished that I were in Germany. At that moment, I wanted to be one of the
protestors standing at the wall, bringing it down. I was still in a state of
amazement on October 3, 1990, as Germany was officially reunited. What I
couldn’t have imagined a couple of years earlier had become a reality.
A man of God had come to the king to predict the price of food. The city
of Samaria had been under siege, and food had become scarce. People were going
hungry; most couldn’t afford either flour or barley. But the prophet had told
the king that, in 24 hours, all of that would change. Within a single day,
flour and barley would go from being unavailable to plentiful. The king and
likely most of the officials in the city thought such an event was impossible
to imagine. The implication was that in less than a day, the siege would be
over, and not because Samaria had given in to their enemy, but because the
enemy had disappeared.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 8
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