Thomas of Strong Catholic asked a bonus question on his Quick Takes this week: What’s your favorite Bible verse? Or, for the indecisive, one of your favorites… ??? Dude, that’s like asking me which of the flowers in a rose garden is my favorite because I tend to read Scripture by passages. So… here are five of my favorite Scripture passages. The version will be in parentheses at the end of the passage.

Romans 8:31-39. It’s one that we use frequently for funerals in the Lutheran Church because it’s a reminder that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all??how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died??more than that, who was raised to life??is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ??For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.?? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)

Psalm 121. I love to read this one, especially when I travel. Like all Psalms, I prefer reading the King James Version because the language is so elegant.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. (KJV)

Hebrews 4:14-16. I love the reminder that we can approach God with the knowledge that we will find grace and mercy.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are??yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God??s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (NIV)

Isaiah 55:6-11. A woman at the church I attended in high school was British and used to pronounce the name of the book as “I-Sigh-Ah”. I also need the reminder frequently that my thoughts are not God’s thoughts and thus I really need to stop obsessing and be patient.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. ??For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,?? declares the Lord. ??As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (NIV)

Philippians 2:5-13. One of my favorite pieces of Scripture is “[work] out your salvation with fear and trembling”.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death ?? even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed??not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence ??continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (NIV)

Go love up Hallie and the others.