08-22-19

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS

August 22, 2019

Scripture: Isaiah 43:19

Look! I’m doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it? I’m making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness.

A Thursday Prayer: So many problems; so many who suffer; so many acts of violence; so many human beings used as pawns; so many children who fall through the cracks. We look at the world, and it can all seem overwhelming. We look to our own community thinking it will be easier, but the immensity of our local struggles can leave us feeling incapacitated. This is where we find ourselves, O Spirit of the Living God. You know what it means to weep over a community that has lost sight of how to live with compassion and kindness. There is so much that makes us weep, yet it is hard and complicated and frustrating. When we are overwhelmed, remind us of how we were called, not to fix every problem, but to find where we can best embody your love and to do so passionately and even recklessly. Let the feelings that so easily lead to paralysis fade as we take another look at the one who enfleshed love, Jesus Christ. Too often we have slipped away from our mission because we follow those who believe that complaining is the same as serving, that posting on social media is the same as compassion, that finding someone to blame for the problem is the same as finding a solution. Give us a moment to breathe, to take in your Living and Loving Spirit. Reconnect each of us to our unique gifts. And then amidst the chaos that can so easily overwhelm, provide us clarity on where we can make a difference in one life today. Guide us to that person, and then allow for the Good News of Jesus to be made real in us. We ask this as those who have too often allowed the immensity of the problems to be our excuse. No more! Amen.

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