Blessings Abound

It is that time of the year, Thanksgiving countdown!  Facebook is full of "thankful" challenges; people are posting pictures and comments.  When you are on social media it looks like Christmas hasn't taken over or ruined the Thanksgiving holiday as it does in the stores.  Psychological studies prove that by intentionally writing down what you are thankful for it helps you become more thankful.  And so this month we are reminded that blessings abound!

But I am also reminded that negativity abounds; angry fills and sadness consumes.  I am also reminded that it takes only one bad moment to ruin a day.  It takes only one bad experience to ruin more.

Yet, when we are in a relationship with God; negativity should not fill, angry should not overwhelm, sadness should not consume and bad moments should not take away from God's grace.  Instead, in those moments we should search for the Spirit; allow grace to fill us, be overcome by forgiveness, and let joy find a way to brighten the moment.   We should allow God's love to overwhelm and let the Spirit speak to the abundance around us. 

However we can only do this when and if we train ourselves to notice, see, exclaim and rejoice in the true blessings that do surround us.  The only way we train to live into the thankfulness and have joyful hearts is if we actually practice this.  If it takes us one time a year, a day that is dedicated to this then so be it.  But really, truly, thanksgiving should remind us that we should be doing this every day of the year.  And not just for ourselves and our lives but we should be rejoicing in those around us and the blessings that abound in their lives.

This thanksgiving, challenge yourself to keep a thankful journal and keep a list of the wonderful things that abound in your life; fill your world and make your life worth living.

Where is God?

Recently I read from Boyd* that in this highly social world we live in it is better that we respond when there is something going in the world and that response matters over content of that response.  To respond and not react each a difficult line to walk and yet in today's world we are told that people value reaction over response.   I am here to CALL us into a different way of being, one in which looks for responsible response over reaction.  

In our passage from Kings below, we meet Elijah after he reacted and fled.  After he asked to die in a cave and yet was offered nourishment by God.  After he realized that God was not in the earthquake or the fire but that God was in the gentle whisper.  God is in the response not the reaction.  

Today, we awake to more news about a Mass shooting in a Texas Church just after a recent attack in Manhattan.  We are losing lives across this country due to violence, mental illness and extreme views.  God's voice can be found in the aftermath of these events but if God's people, God's mouth pieces and hands and feet, are being silent then God's presence is lost to the world.  If we Christians continue to live our lives as these events don't need anything more than simply our prayers than God becomes nothing but a distant, absent and worst unreliable worthless God.  That isn't who my God is.  My God is a God who loves us.  Who offer a Prince of Peace to live among us and humbly offer forgiveness to those who believe.  

We cannot be silent.  For in this Kings passage Elijah was told to go back and proclaim.  In the whisper Elijah was told to go and be the voice of God.  And Elijah did so with gusto.   Notice who God was a gentle whisper not a silent voice.  We are called to stand not just for those who died due to unnecessary violence but for all those in the future who will be victims if we do nothing.   

I am not calling for us to go gun free.   I am not calling for us to send immigrants out of this country.  I am calling us to look at our society and to question, if we call ourselves a Christian, is this a reflection of the Kingdom?  Surely it isn't.  Surely our call is to truly bring the Kingdom of God around us - where there is no Jew or Gentile, free or slave, woman or man but instead a place where all can be uplifted for their gifts from God.  I strongly encourage you to think about the voice of God.  Where is God in the world around us?  God is in all of us.  God is in you and me.  God's voice is our voice when we call each other out and encourage one another to live into the Kingdom - offering more than basic needs but instead moving aside greed for love and engulfing one another in the grace of the Kingdom.  Let's begin to build the Kingdom in the here and now.  Speak God's voice and don't let the voice of violence, the voice of hate, the voice of war become the only voice people turn to. 

1 Kings 19: 11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 

12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 

13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

*It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Danah Boyd 

https://www.amazon.com/Its-Complicated-Social-Lives-Networked-ebook/dp/B00HUYT8TS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509800172&sr=8-1&keywords=its+complicated+the+social+lives+of+networked+teens