Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Even In Our Darkest Darkness God’s Light Guides Us, If We But Hear …
God Help Us Hear!
Jeremiah 31:10
Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away;
say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.’
John 17:20-21
‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Words of Grace For Today
Humans always have a difficult time hearing God.
Maybe it is primarily because we want to hear something that God does not say.
Or
Because we do not want to hear what God does say.
Or
Because we are so afraid of what we do hear!
Or
Because we’ve let the Devil fill our ears with temptations and promises that actually suck the life right out of us!
God provides lots of guidance, even what we see as punishments (like being exiled from our home lands as Israel has been many times), in order to ‘get through’ our thick skins, stiff necks, and thicker heads what God intends for us, God’s unconditional love, forgiveness, and blessed renewed purposeful life.
God does not merely work to get us to see, hear and trust God. God works so that the whole world will know how God deals with us and all the people of God’s good creation.
God wants us to be as one, without division, without conflict between ourselves, blatant witnesses to God’s good and generous grace, which overcomes all challenges to a blessed life.
Living in community, trying to be guided by the Spirit, is no simple feat, and success is never achieved. It is at best approximated, striven for, and hoped for, as a guiding light in our darkness.
This darkness God works to get through to us, that God walks with us through all of life’s challenges, and that our conflict with one another does nothing for us, that our forgiveness of one another is the key to living well in this God’s good creation.
As we forgive, we stand like bright lights for the world to see: this is how God deals with us, so that likewise, we can deal with others.
Now for this day … what will come our way?