Freedom in Christ--Galatians 5:3:13-25. Sermon from Sunday June 29, 2025

            Not long ago it was Pentecost, the time where we recall the empowerment of the church. Peter and the disciples have begun their work of sharing the gospel and teaching what Christ taught them to their community. 

            But as we all know, and have all experienced, internal strife and internal struggles can limit the effectiveness of the work that we do for the Lord. 

            While this text can easily hold our attention in one of two places, both lists of Fruits of the Spirit, the massive list of sins that the church does not want to fall into, I want us to back up to the previous section: verses 13-15 and consider those words from Paul as a challenge to hold fast to the true nature of the gospel. 

For in those first verses of our text a popular concept from today is elevated, and this concept is held in contrast with a worldview that we see each day. Freedom contrasted with biting and devouring in the church. 

            Let’s examine them one at a time before returning to the place where we will start. 

Move 1- Freedom.

            When I say freedom, we are quick to identify that term with July 4^th, with both the religious and the political freedom that we witness in our country and upon which our country was founded. And while that is one definition and one application of freedom, the term used here by Paul for ‘freedom’ carries with it a deeper definition for the church. 

This deeper definition also carries with it a deeper theological richness that we need to recall and hold onto before we get to the list of sins in verse 19-21 and the Fruits of the Spirit in 22 & 23. 

            Freedom in Paul’s theological lexicon: “signifies the liberating reality that believers possess in Christ. More than political emancipation or philosophical autonomy, it is the God-given release from every form of spiritual bondage so that the redeemed may serve the Lord willingly, joyfully, and fruitfully.”[1] (REPEAT)

            Notice how Paul takes our concept of freedom, the one that you and I might bring to any discussion on the idea of freedom, and Paul expands this idea and gives it theological legs to stand upon. He widens it, while he brings the Lord into the discussion.

            Freedom in Paul’s theological mind is linked to our freedom in Christ and our choice to serve the Lord willingly and joyfully and ultimately fruitfully together. 

We are free in Christ and that freedom cannot be held back and it cannot be held only to ourselves. Our freedom in Christ calls us forward as the church. It calls us to care for the community, and it specifically calls us edify the church and build up one another—the two (Freedom and living and working in Christ) cannot be separated and Paul did not intend for them to be. 

            And in Paul’s mind, these two ideas were never meant to be separated. We are free and we live and work in Christ as the church. 

This is a popular theme that we will read and consider throughout the remainder of Pauline epistles. For when we have Christ in our hearts, when we live with Christ at the center of our being, and allow Christ to guide our actions, we are truly free to care for each other in the church, and we are free to serve our community in faith. 

Move 2- biting and devouring

            While we are free in Christ, Paul is aware that the church in Galatia, and the church of our past, and the church today, right now, we are working in and building, we will be confronted with a challenge.

            And while we might be tempted to think that these challenges are different; that they bear no resemblance to each other. I wonder if there are some similarities, some underlying theme that Paul is speaking about that we can take with us when we face our community and serve them? 

For as Paul writes about this challenge in Galatia, he is just as vivid in his description of that challenge as he was when thinking about freedom in Christ. So, his words then, they should strike at our hearts now when we come to this passage. For while the context is different—it is not truly that different.

            The two words Paul uses here to speak about the challenge are: biting and devouring.

And he warns us not bite or devour one another or risk being consumed. Let’s look at them separately and notice how they are diametrically opposed to the freedom in Christ that comes in our personal relationship with Jesus. 

Biting

            When Paul says that ‘biting’ occurs, the first thing that he is saying that this behavior is taking place inside the church. 

While certainly external persecution happens, by his word choice this suffering, this biting, wounds and breaks the church down. The term that Paul employs in verse 15, it speaks directly into the church. 

Paul warns the church then, and today, that we are to watch our destructive speech when we are together as the Body. Watch our destructive behaviors for they have a ‘biting,’ a tear with teeth, a painful impact, on the Body of Christ first. 

            For Paul this behavior is tragic because these are self-inflicted wounds that the church causes to itself that could, and if we are freed by Christ then these wounds should be, avoided. These wounds are unnecessary. . . but we choose to bite. We choose to tear rather than build up and to be free in Christ.

            This biting amplifies the sinful choices that we make every day that are listed in verses 19-21 and they lead us toward devouring one another. 

Devouring

            The second word that Paul uses is devouring and it is just as vivid and just and painful to consider. 

            If biting hurts the church internally then devouring is what happens after the biting action and choice takes place here. The devouring is how our life here looks after we have bitten each other repeatedly and consistently. 

While ‘biting’ only occurs in this once place in Paul’s epistles, the word for devouring appears in other places in the scriptures. Most notably this is the word that the elder brother accuses his younger prodigal brother of doing with his portion of the inheritance. The younger. . . devoured it. And in that case, you can begin to imagine what the impact of the ‘devouring’ action and choice looks like. 

            In that case it was: “utterly devour[ed], leaving nothing; ferociously consume all the way down, i.e. with a rapacious, voracious appetite – leaving only ruination, without hope of recovery (or even remains).[2]

            In our day, in the places that we go, in the people that we seek to care for in the church and throughout our local community, I think that each of you can put a face not just being bitten, but we can put a face to what it looks like, and who you know, who has been devoured in this way. . . We know people in the community of faith who might, if they were honest in the moment say, they know what it feels like to live in a place without the hope of recovery. 

Move 3- back to freedom.

            Because Paul warns us about the dangers of being bitten and devoured and consumed by one another, we need to once again to return to the freedom that comes from Christ in these places of biting and devouring in the church and in the community. We need to find the strength to help each other, and those of our community, reach this freedom in Christ together that is promised and offered in Jesus. 

We need to be reminded of the healing that comes in Christ Jesus as we are together as the Body of Christ. We need to practice and live through and with the Fruits of the Spirit that this text ends with. 

For Paul, “Freedom isn’t a perfect, unassailable state we attain after passionate campaigning and willful struggle. It’s an experience we can attain right now by living, like Jesus, in the face of enslaving temptations, with patience, gentleness and generosity. Then we may call our lives, and the life of this church, a parable for our times.”[3]

Freedom in Christ means a change in our hearts where we move from one state, one choice back, towards another where we love our neighbors as ourselves (verse 14 which is a word from Jesus in Matthew 7) in care and support. Freedom means moving back from the choice to bite and devour others and back towards loving each other as Christ loved His church. 
Conclusion
            So, the challenge of this text is one of meditation and reflection for the work is never done because we are always confronted with the choice to bite and devour. Yet we are also always offered the freedom in Christ. 
            And we have a final word for that freedom that comes in our relationship with Christ, a word that captures how important to God it is that we, the Body of Christ come together in the freedom that Jesus won for us. . . and that word is: communion. 

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[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/1657.htm  accessed on June 25, 2025. 

 

[2] https://biblehub.com/greek/2719.htm  accessed on June 26, 2025. 

 

[3] https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/the-second-sunday-after-trinity/  accessed on June 25, 2025. 

 

Up and down. . . a lesson in caring.

It was shortly after 7:30 last night. Jennifer was drying her hair after a night of swimming and supper while I scrolled through the evening news on my phone. Outside the thunder of the storm was growing. I sighed. . . I love a good thunderstorm. They make some of the best sleeping weather. 

Then she interrupted me. "Did you hear that?" I did not hear anything She said it again before completing her thought: "It sounds like a horn. There it is again. Get up and look."

"A horn," I wondered. I expected perhaps a tornado siren but not a horn. 

Rushing to look out our window I was shocked to see seven horses trotting across the church driveway with a white Toyota pickup honking their horn behind the horses attempting to keep them off McConnells Highway. Jennifer was indeed right--she heard a horn.

Of the many things I thought I might see on a 'dark and stormy night' seven horses in my driveway was not high on my list. 

Over the next hour, Jennifer and I, with several church members alongside of us, attempted to find these misplaced horses and get them back to their home. The horses settled, for a bit behind the Family Life Center between the cemetery and the playground. Back there is a fence and the horses ran free and fast in the grass. I could not tell if they were afraid or having the time of their lives. But it did not matter. They were safe and they could graze.  

Up and down that hill I travelled trying to keep my eye on them. I walked that hill so many times that I lost track of the count. My knees ached. The shoes I wore, my dad's old Crocs, are a size too small so they kept slipping off my feet in the wet grass. Up and down I went because I knew it was what was needed in the moment as others watched the road for the owner of the horses.

We do a lot of things in the church for nameless and faceless people of our community. But we do it because we care and because it is what God asks us to serve and care. So I wonder today if you can find a place or a moment to serve a little bit more, a little bit deeper because it is what God asks of you? 

Sound of Sheer Silence--1 Kings 19:8-15a. Sermon for Sunday June 22, 2025.

            Everybody, and I mean everybody, has a mountaintop experience in their faith journey and in their lives. Sometimes they recognize that God is with them in these moments and sometimes that truth is veiled from their hearts and minds. But regardless, God is present. . . God is always present. 

And so, when the mountaintop experiences happen, this is a truth at we cannot deny—God was, and is, there. 

            And converse is also true. If we all have mountaintop experiences, then we all have valley periods. And if God was present at (or on) the mountaintop with us, then God is also present in the darkest of valleys. I have thought, and talked, about the valley periods recently with you as a church, so we do not need to think about them too much more right now. 

            Today let’s shift the perspective back up the mountaintop; to the point of elevation from which we see everything and can notice everything. The point where our breath is taken away and we marvel at what is taking place there with God right by our side. 

            For like Elijah in 1 Kings 18, at VBS this past week we have our own opportunities to see God at work and notice that we were indeed living and operating on the mountaintop. 

What happens next is up to us—as it was up to Elijah.  

Move 1- chapter 18

            As we know before the occurrence of our text, Elijah had a front row seat, with a literal mountaintop view, of the movement of God’s action before the nation of Israel. The 600 prophets of Baal spent the day cutting themselves, dancing around an altar they constructed to their god. They called out to their god, and at every turn an absent god who does not exist and did not respond. 

            On that mountaintop, Elijah mocks them. 

With God’s voice and presence in his heart, Elijah taunts these false prophets until the moment when he prays to the Living God and fire falls from heaven. 

The fire licks up the water around the sacrifice. The fire consumes the sacrifice itself, and it melts the rocks of the altar that Elijah built. And everyone knows that there is only one God—Yahweh. The view from the mountaintop that day was great and it should have been transformative for everyone especially Elijah. 

            The view from the mountaintop was splendid on many levels. It was powerful. There was a chance to testify to how great our God is on the mountaintop. If anyone doubted that there is one and only one God in Israel those doubts should be put to rest. But as we know that is not the case. 

            Jezebel pronounces that if it is the last thing that she will do, Elijah will die—this is recorded in 1 Kings 19:2. And this very declaration, which should have been nothing more than noise and chatter to a servant of the Lord who witnessed the power and presence of God from his view on the mountaintop. . . but instead it shakes him to his core and Elijah runs. 

And we find him in verse 8 of our text taking refuge in a cave. 

            We might have been on the mountaintop ourselves a time or two; been up there witnessing and marveling at how God is at work in this community and having great reasons to hope for what is to come. 

But the fall from that place can be quick for any person or people who do not remember where the Lord is and what the Lord is doing in our midst. The mountaintop should help to solidify our faith and remind us of the faithfulness of God. But in Elijah’s story, he forgets what he just experienced… may we not repeat that in our lives as Bible school ends or as any other program of this church comes and goes. I hope we will continue to see how and where God is at work. 

Move 2- what are you doing?

            Our text today is bookended with a question that God asks Eljah. It is a question that you and I also are asked when we once knew of the goodness of the mountaintop but seem to have forgotten how great our God is, and we have wandered into our own metaphorical cave. And the question is: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”[1]

            Now as we know, Elijah will try and answer this question, and he will fail. 

Like a child standing before an authority figure (a parent, a teacher), Elijah should just stand there, and he should be still before God. For as we know when we are still before God, when we give God the space to speak to our hearts, God will speak, and God will revive us. 

Yet also like a child before that authority figure Elijah attempts to formulate a response that justifies his position and elevates his choices and actions to flee from the presence and safety of the Lord and opt to hide himself in a cave. 

“What you are doing here, Elijah?” 

            God’s question to Elijah, and to us, is a question that asks us about our faith and our understanding that God is always with us, and further, when God is with us there is no reason to hide or retreat. 

For in fact, God knows why Elijah is in that cave. God sent the Angel of the Lord earlier in this chapter with bread and water to feed Elijah in that place twice—a fact that escaped Elijah’s mind as he stands before God. 

I wonder if God wants a response verbally from His servant or if God is asking a question with no answer to cause the person(s) to pause and to ponder? I wonder if God wants Elijah to return to that place of hope and stillness and wonder in his heart: ‘Why did I leave the mountaintop? Why did I leave the place where I could testify to God being at work and God being present in the first place? Why did I forget the miracle of God’s presence and opt for a place of doubt and hesitation?”

            And as Elijah fumbles through a response, much as we would do when we are in our own metaphorical cave, God steps in again, and God responds in a way that the Scriptures cannot capture.  

But it is God’s response.

Let’s notice the response together again. . . 

First there are the physical acts of a great wind, or an earthquake, or fire. They would shake the prophet’s heart; they might get his attention. But those physical demonstrations or movements are not what causes him to cover his face and stand at the mouth of the cave in silence and wait. 

It is the sound of sheer silence that is recorded in verse 12. I wonder how long that sheer silencelasted. The ESV translates the words here as “a low whisper.” 

But it is the same concept. . . not more noise or more justification or more proof as Elijah offered it to God or as our world offers it to each other. The sound of sheer silence. God responds differently. 

            I wonder if you have heard that same sound of ‘sheer silence’ from the Lord in your faith journey recently? I can tell you that this week at VBS, if you were listening among all the commotion, all the games, songs, food, and lessons, that “low whisper,” that “sheer silence” was speaking to us and to anyone who was listening and who stood there? It was profound. 

Move 3- sheer silence

            Now this does not mean a sound of absence or the sound of ‘no response’ coming from God. That is the temptation that we like to fall back upon in seasons like this or in times when God seems far off… times like what Elijah might have been feeling or dealing with. 

I do not believe that God chooses to be absent, and God does not offer ‘no response’ either when the people of the Lord need to hear from their God in the moment of need—something which we have also needed in seasons as families and as a church. 

But the sound of ‘sheer silence,’ the sound of a ‘low whisper’ from God it touches deeply into our hearts, and it moves us. It takes what we might think of only as common place, and it becomes a moment of reverence. A moment of faith and trust. A moment where doubt can creep in, but in that low whispering from God, our faith is strengthened, and we hear and feel the call to service and action. 

That sound also changes the prophet. It reinforces Elijah’s heart and reminds him of his call. He could not stay in the cave any longer. He might want to. We might want to. But the sound of God’s voice, mysterious and silent as it can be, should call us to action and service when those around us might choose differently. 

The low whisper of God reminds us that once we lived and served the Lord on the mountaintop and with God by our side, we can continue to serve God regardless of the physical location or the challenges that each day brings to us. 

Conclusion 

            As I said VBS was a place, noisy, stressful, hot, all wrapped up in God’s presence. There were plenty of times when we could have thrown up our hands in frustration and stomped off to hide in our own caves away from God and away from each other. 

It could have been a struggle to see and hear God being with us at all. 

But if you come over and watch the video, and if you are listening, you might just notice the sound of God’s voice resonating around the program. That same voice of the Lord is calling to us now to move out from this service into our community yet again and practice our call faithfully and diligently. 

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[1] 1 Kings 8:9, 13 ESV. 

 

Settling for a doubt... it is much easier.

Here at Bethesda it is the middle of VBS week. The church is buzzing with kids singing, playing, and learning about the Lord. I believe that when the church cares for its community and is reaching out into the community, we are planting seeds that time to grow. At the same time, we are also tending to the seeds that have been planted by others for the work of discipleship is one of partnering and patience. 

But when we are tasked with patience by the Lord, doubt can also creep in because we like to see the fruit of our labor come quickly and come in an overwhelming way that gives doubts no chance to grow. 

Today as I was reading I came across an interesting statement that I wanted to share that speaks to this point: 

"In fact, most Christians have settled down under their doubts, as to a sort of inevitable malady, from which they suffer acutely, but to which they must try to be resigned as a part of the necessary discipline of this earthly life; and they lament over their doubts as a man might lament over his rheumatism. . ." 

Reading on further it seems that Hannah Whitall Smith's point is that for many people in the Church have just come to accept that doubting is part of their faith. We work... we doubt. As we encounter our community we doubt that God is working and that God is with us in the work that we are doing. Perhaps our doubts might even lead us to wonder if we are forsaken or 'getting what we deserve.'

We work, we struggle, and we doubt. It is a vicious cycle that some in the church fall into.

But as I consider this quotation again, I wonder: maybe the Lord is asking us to look at our work, our community, and our faith practices from a different perspective? I wonder if we can put away the doubting and instead just live believe and continue to serve. . . 

God is not done with us yet. And will not leave us to struggle alone in this world. 

Sermon from Trinity Sunday. Text Romans 5:1-5

This is my sermon manuscript from Sunday, June 15th. 

 Today is Trinity Sunday; a vitally important day to remember as the church, and a day that is also often overlooked on the church calendar. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday right after Pentecost and has been since the 10^th century. For as the title suggests, this is the day that we consider the doctrine of the Trinity… and as best as we can we attempt to make sense of 1 person, 3 beings. 

If you have ever sat in on a confirmation class with me, then you know that when we discuss the doctrine of the Trinity in that setting, I play a short cartoon video from the YouTube channel Lutheran Satire where a pair of twins asks St Patick to explain to them the Trinity. And since they are poor farmers, the conversation does not go well. 

I cannot fully remember the dialogue, but it ends something like. A frustrated St. Patrick blurts out to the boys: “The Trinity is something which cannot comprehended by human reason and is best understood through faith alone…”[1] He huffs and puffs through a long response that makes the audience laugh. But the doctrine of the Trinity is foundationally serious for us. 

God’s revelation of Himself to us as Triune is indeed a mystery, and one that we all agree is vitally important to our lives, and as it is important, I want to take this time today to speak about it on Trinity Sunday.

Using Romans 5 as the way to consider how the Triune God is with us in our everyday life, I believe Paul gives us a good direction forward in this consideration. For what good is this doctrine as crucial as the Trinity is for us, if we cannot take it from the worship space and share its impact with the people who we see each day? What good is the confession that God is with us in all three persons of the Trinity if we cannot feel, seek, and find God when we need the Lord? 

And the word that Paul uses to access or approach the Triune God is: Hope.

Move 1- Defining Hope.

            To begin, we need a definition of hope because as a church, both locally church here at Bethesda, and the larger Church Universal who has been a witness to all that occurs in this world daily since the ascension of the Lord, we are seeing a rise in suffering, pain, and evil. 

And while I do not need to specifically point out the places, people, and moments, where we have seen this, I know that your minds have already begun to identify where we have felt the sting as recently as 2 weeks ago in this place and as part of this community. 

            But this suffering which we endure is not limited to a short season—and it will continue in the future that we have together. 

Times of tribulation are the seasons that the church has dealt with, and will deal with consistently, until the Lord returns. They are a sign that the end is coming… but they are also a sign that the dawn is also coming. 

And so, as we gaze into that liminal, that middle space, we HOPE for what is coming. We hope. And we need to see the place and moment of hope when what see does not appear to contain God personally even if we could state that God does not leave us.   

            So, when pain comes, we need to find moments to ground and hold our faith in. we need something that is worthy of hope. But what are we talking about? What is hope? 

If you grabbed a copy of the Oxford dictionary, or used google to search that same for a definition of hope, you would find a choice of two definitions. Hope is defined as either: 

a: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

b: a feeling of trust.[2]

            Both of those sound correct, but yet neither contain any theological language that might help us find God when we need the Lord. Yet God is present, and God is the source of our hope when we witness the struggles in our lives, or in the lives of other people, we need theological language to make sense of what is happening. We need a source of hope. A grounding in hope. 

            On Trinity Sunday, understanding hope helps us to locate the God who is already present and waiting. We need the God who is inviting us in. 

Move 2- Theological Hope

            Three times in this text, Paul reminds the Christians in Rome to ground their hope in God. And while he does not use the traditional Trinitarian formula as other texts in scripture might, we can hear it if we are listening. 

We hear, and we see, each person of the Trinity actively present in Paul’s thinking as he helps the church, in hope, access the God… peace with God… faith in our Lord Jesus Christ… God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It is all right there for the Christian, the church, and the community who needs the Lord. 

And further in using Hope, Paul also reminding the people hearing his words to practice their faith—or to have a faith that this same God is with them, relationally, in whatever they are enduring each day. The Trinitarian God, the God who they have come to trust, come to believe in, has not abandoned them in their time of need.

But as God is in perfect union and harmony in the Trinity, as God is in perfect relationship, we are invited to join that relationship with God. And this too stokes the fire of hope in us.

            For the hope that the Roman Christians have, and the faith they practice, it is all experienced, with the triune God fully present and fully inviting them into the relationship. We see this throughout the entirety of these 5 verses. And so, we have a theological hope to fall back upon. 

            For as members of the Body of Christ, hope should always point us always towards the Risen Christ. Even when we the substance of our day makes finding hope hard, we reach out to God, and we hope. For Christians ‘to speak of Hope is to speak of [the person of] Jesus Christ [in union with God].’[3] For Jesus is our hope, and as the text says in verse 3, that hope causes us to rejoice! And further our ‘hope is never put to shame.’[4]

For God, the source of our hope is reliable, and He is consistent and present. Philosopher Alferd Whitehead said, “God is the fellow sufferer who… understands.”[5]

            In a passage about Hope, we also find the Trinitarian presence being lifted up to us. 

Move 3- relationship

            And more than simply being lifted up doctrinally, Trinity Sunday is an invitation to relationship with God. And more than simply a general invitation that we could blindly take or leave, the relationship is further strengthened by God’s choice to never be, except, to be with us in this relationship knowing all that we will endure and all that we do endure.

            And in this choice by God, we again come back to the mystery of Trinity Sunday—and the mystery of Hope. 

            Remember those definitions that I gave you earlier for Hope: “trust” and “a desire for a certain thing to happen.” 

In the trinitarian relationship that Paul teaches us about in Romans 5, Paul is helping the church to relationally find deeper trust and an ultimate desire for this relationship to prosper and grow… and we call both of those things, both of those aspects: faith. 

            We are practicing our faith as we seek God and seek a deeper relationship with the one who is Emmanuel, the one who in Romans 5:1 justifies us and gives us peace. This is not just a ‘in the sweet by and by’ doctrine or relationship only from God because that would be of no comfort to God’s people who live amid ill health, violence, poverty, and so on… This hope, this relationship that God offers us invites us to hope for a better future that we find together with God in new and remarkable ways. 

            Some obvious. . . and some less than obvious, but all grounded and held in the Triune God who offers us the peace that Paul speaks about as well in this text.

Conclusion 

            Today is Trinity Sunday so let us take that doctrine and all that it represents and means and take Hope in it. Let us wonder about the God who welcomes us into this relationship and more than just wonder about it distantly, I wonder if you will invite one more person to locate the placement of the Triune God in their lives and help them to find, and share, the Hope this week?

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw  

[2] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=definition+of+hope&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8  

[3] Andrew Purves and Charles Partee, Encountering God: Christian Faith in Turbulent Times. Page 156. 

 

[4] Jurgen Moltmann, A Theology of Hope. Exerts. 

 

[5] Andrew Purves and Charles Partee. Encountering God: Christian Faith in Turbulent Times. Page 159

Can you find rest.... I wonder?

As I get ready to meet with the children of our day care for our weekly chapel conversation, I was reading a portion of Hannah Whitall Smith's book, The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life. As a Quaker, Hannah spent a great deal of time thinking and quietly reflecting on this subject. 

Her words will speak to the heart of anyone who finds her and spends time considering what she has to say. Specifically I was held with the following passage: 

"And here you must rest. There is nothing more for you to do, except to be henceforth an obedient child; for you are the Lord's now, absolutely and entirely in His hands, and He has undertaken the whole care and management and forming of you, and will, according to His word, work in you "that which is well pleasing in His sigh through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:21). But you must hold steadily here. If you begin to question your surrender, or God's acceptance of it. . .  He cannot work in you to do His will." 

I had to reread that passage more than once because the truth of her words cut me deep as I worry if I have been productive enough this week as a Christian. 

We like to think that we are in charge of our lives and our own future. We like to think that we can change the world ourselves. Boot-strapping is alive and well in the Body of Christ (and to an extent we do play a role in service to God as we practice our faith). But by practicing a posture of being in charge for ourselves we offer ourselves so little room and space to rest in the Lord--and resting in the Lord is so needed today. 

We can become so busy running and pressing and hurrying from thing to thing that we miss the chance to just rest. We can miss the chance to hold God's hand and let God hold ours. In truth, I believe the rest that Hannah speaks of is what is most needed in our day today. We need less yelling and less finger pointing and more resting in the Lord--a Lord who we can never go to a place where HE is not waiting for us already. 

And for us... that presence needs to be enough. 

I wonder, can you find rest today in a world that will try to push you away from God and away from rest?

 

A New Challenge for You

I have not written in this space in a while. But nonetheless I have still been wondering. And still been seeking to engage the question of where is God at work. 

Here in South Carolina it has become bitterly cold. . . Cold like it was when my family lived in Pennsylvania. I have been joking that I no longer have the clothes for this type of weather. My toes are in a constant state of chilly and I can't wait to feel the heat of the south rise again (and yes, I will complain about it when it comes).   

As the cold has come some things have remained the same. 

Flynn still needs to go out at night between 2-3am which I found horrible in this cold. Tucked into his sweater, he trots out every night into the freezing cold to do his business with a toy in his mouth. He is happy so I guess I have to be happy with him. It is so quiet at night here. The sky is so still in this cold. The steam from my breath seems to make a sound as the cloud rises up. 

He has never seen snow so it's funny to watch him navigate picking his spot while trying to figure out what 'snow' is and why it is here. 

We slip quietly back into the house and back to bed. He sighs and returns to his place against my leg and soon is off to sleep again. I find the whole thing (irritating as it can be to wake with a dog standing on your face) a sacred practice. 

The whole thing. . . standing there in the silent cold. Listening to the night a practice of the sacred. I cannot help but pray especially with all that is happening in our life now. And so here is the challenge for you: Can you find the sacred also? 

This cold irritates me. Like I said, my feet are so cold even now. My fingers ache and even in my office the tip of my nose is cool to the touch. Nothing about winter seems sacred. But it is. . . Or should I say: it can be. And in that affirmation, I again wonder if what you are doing right now can also be a practice in the sacred? 

Maybe (after you finish reading this) lean back and consider where the sacred space with God could be today? And when you find it, try and linger there for just a little longer than you normally might. . . and enjoy it.