Living Abundance

Daily Devotion - May 20

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Last week, I reflected on the first of our congregation's guiding convictions that we have hanging in the church Gathering Room: God is doing something here and now that incorporates the past and leads us into the future. You can see that reflection here.

Today I want to consider our second guiding conviction:

We are exactly the right size and make-up, and have all the resources we need, for what God wants to do in and through us.

I have seen this in action so much during this time.  Church, your creativity is shining, your generosity abundant, your flexibility and humor are huge strengths and massive assets in this time of unknown, loss, confusion and waiting.  You are watching for God, you are loving your neighbor, you are being honest with your pain, you are welcoming each other's support, you are being Church.

This time has flipped everything on its head - but we talk a lot about God's Kingdom being upside down and backwards from the world.  Nobody was prepared for this. But we're prepared to not be prepared for things.  Nobody knows what comes next. But we know that it's normal not to know what comes next.  Nobody has answers.  But we know that not having answers is part of the journey.  We've gotten used to waiting for God's leading and direction, and acting on the one next step revealed to us, instead of laying a confident path for the ten steps after that.

As we move into the summer, I am really hopeful, even excited, for all the creative ways God will bind us to each other, and draw us deeper in love with the world. We will be changed; we are being changed. But being changed is what being Church is all about.  Being changed is what our faith calls us to.

I don't know if you all know this story, but our guiding convictions came from our biggest fears.When 2011 began, we named our congregational fears - the stories we tell ourselves deep inside that hold us back from what God wants to do with us,  (Things like, "We're too small. We don't have enough money. We're too old...")  We said our fears out loud.  And then we said their opposite.  And we felt so strange and silly saying the opposite, because that felt like lies. We believed our fears were true.  But we said the opposite anyway, and then we hung them up.  Not even a few years later, they came to clearly describe us.  Our stories of scarcity were the real lies.  The truth was right in front of us and remains there now. 

We feel lonely, maybe. Disconnected, weary.  We forget that our belonging transcends our circumstances. We are impatient and frustrated.  But also, we are held, we are loved, we are sustained through this by the Spirit of God and the community of the saints - that's each other.  Let's keep in touch, shall we? Share when we need help, share when we're brimming with joy, share when we are tapped out or ready to step up?  Let's draw on all the resources God has given us for the ministry God is calling us to right now: loving each other, loving God, loving the world.  Let's trust in the infinite grace, constant provision, and overflowing abundance of our God.

 

CONNECTING RITUAL:
Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

In the great lights of the night sky
and its unbounded stretches of space
I glimpse the shinings of your presence, O God.
In the universe of my soul
and its boundless depths
I look for emanations of your light.
In the silence of sleep
and the dreams of the night
I watch for jewels of infinity.
I the silence of sleep
and the dreams of this night
I watch for the shinings of your presence.
Amen.

(prayer from J. Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal)