“I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me (Henri J. M. Nouwen, Finding My Way Home).”

When I let go of my wishes and expectations, not only does something new begin to happen for me but also in me. I am transformed.

I saw recently that one of my favorite movies ever, The Princess Bride, hit theaters 31 years ago.

Wow. That was both amazing and depressing all at the same time.

I don’t necessarily feel like I should be that old. I mean, I get around pretty good and I remember what I came into the room for, mostly.

Still, those anniversaries of movies and songs really remind me that I’m not 16 anymore. Or 26. Or 36.

Then I remember that growing old is a privilege denied to so many. Too many people I know won’t get to grow old because they passed away far too young.

I still believe that every day that God lets me wake up is a gift and that nothing beyond today is guaranteed when it comes to this earthly life.

Still, I wish not everything I liked was old. That’s starting to get old.

“To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness” (Brennan Manning).

I love taking the Eucharist, especially at Kairos. The way Chris Brooks leads us through the liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer has a profound way of centering my thoughts on the elements of the bread and the wine, and the sacrifice they represent.

When you receive the blood shed for you and the body broken for you, whether you believe that’s symbolic or the actual body and blood, you remember. You give thanks not just with your words but with your actions.

Eucharist at times is like singing the doxology in darkness. In the midst of your worst week, Eucharist reminds you that the worst won’t last but that the best is yet to come. It reminds us that nothing that comes at us, whether it be loss or pain or death, can ever truly separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Eucharist reminds us all that none of us are entitled or worthy to receive the broken bread and spilled out wine but that Christ makes us worthy. Communion says that those who were once outsiders, enemies, and strangers to the promises of God have now been brought near through the Cross and are now sons and daughters of God, friends, and partakers and heirs of all the promises of God.

“Hey Soul? yeah, it’s really kinda miraculous, if you think about it: Whatever got botched or bungled yesterday — Today’s a full 24 hours of a completely clean slate. Fresh mercies, new hours — 
given to you because you are loved more than you realize, 
because you are carried further than you know, 
because He is for you more than you can imagine. 
“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,*His merciful love couldn’t have dried up*.*They’re created new every morning.*How great your faithfulness!” 
Lam. 3:22-24MSG
The mercies of God cannot & will not fail 
& His faithfulness is not merely great —  
*it. is. unwavering.*” (Ann Voskamp)

Yep. What she said.

Whatever happened on this Monday, whether good or bad or indifferent, Tuesday’s got fresh mercies and a clean slate. Whether you feel you triumphed over the day or feel defeated by it, you can rest in the unwavering faithfulness of God.

Let your fears fade into the full and perfect love of God that casts out all anxieties and phobias. Rest in the knowledge that God’s promises aren’t bound to our remembering God but that God remembers us.

Nothing that happens in the next 24 hours — absolutely nothing — can separate you from that love in Christ Jesus. You are loved. You are held. You are safe.

“Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life–be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others…I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba’s child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out).

We all could do with a little more tenderness and compassion these days instead of self-righteous anger, condescension, name-calling, arrogance, and plenty of other -isms out there that divide rather than unite.

You can disagree with someone else without them becoming the enemy. You can have opposite opinions on a topic without the other automatically becoming evil or stupid.

It all boils down to remembering that we all bear the imago dei, the image of God, and are all created lovingly by Creator God. There’s no one for whom Jesus did not die. 

That’s not to say that you should never speak out against injustice and wrong in the world, but that there is a loving and compassionate way to do so that maintains the dignity and worth of all human beings.

At the end when we stand before Jesus, He will not ask if we won every argument or showed the other side how stupid and wrong they were. He will not ask if our side “won” and we were proven right.

He will ask what we did for the least of these and for those with no voice. He will ask if we loved others the way that He loves them and the way that He loved us when we were at our most unlovable.

So, try a little more tenderness and compassion.

I on occasion will post something political. Most of the time, I’m not a fan of politics or political posts of any kind.

I think mostly that’s because they end up being a lot of diatribes and rhetoric that sounds a lot more like talking at people (or better yet, talking down to people) than talking to people.

More than ever before, I believe that we need less rhetoric and more respect. We need less diatribe and more dialogue. We need most of all to talk less, listen more, and find a common ground of understanding.

It does no good to belittle your opposition and call them names. That does nothing to solve issues or address injustices. All that does is create and sustain a wall of division.

I also believe that you gain the power and authority to speak into the lives of others only as you listen to others. Really listen, and not just hear to respond. After all, you have one mouth and two ears for a reason.

I think we find when we listen and communicate respectfully with a view to understanding rather than to being proven right, we find that we are more alike than we originally thought. We find that we are all human beings searching for peace and purpose in a sometimes very chaotic world.

I’d also add that a dose of humility would do wonders in our quest to find understanding. My point of view isn’t necessarily better than yours, just different. I might have something I can learn from you, as well as you from me, by engaging in a dialogue rather than yelling and slinging epithets at each other from a distance.

I love the prayer of St. Francis and I think it seems a very appropriate way to sum up everything I’ve said previously:

“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

“The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

My prayer for every single person reading these words is that they might realize the purpose for which God created them and to know and enjoy God in Jesus forever.

There is no greater joy than to come alive to the knowledge that you are sons and daughters of this great God and to let His love transform you more and more into the image of His Son Jesus.

“Be a continuous learner, don’t stop short, and the truth will open to you on the right hand and on the left until you find there is no problem in human life with which the Bible does not deal. But remember that there are certain points of truth Our Lord cannot reveal to us until our character is in a fit state to bear it. The discernment of God’s truth and the development of character go together” (Oswald Chambers, Approved Unto God).

In terms of maturity in the faith, you never come to a point where you’ve arrived. There’s always something new to learn and something to change.

The problem with American Christianity (and in my own life as well) is that most of the time I view learning in terms of knowledge, while the Bible talks about learning in view of transformation.

One stays and stagnates in my intellect and does me no good, while the other changes how I think AND how I live.

I think I know which one I prefer. May we be not just hearers of God’s Word but doers also.

If I seem to be a little excited about the whole prospect of fall, it’s because I am.

I’m officially over and done with the 90+ degree temperatures with the one bazillion percent humidity. It’s like stepping out into Satan’s sweaty sauna every time I go outside.

There are probably some of you who love and cherish summer and hate to see it end. You dread any season with weather under 85 degrees. Well, bless your heart.

I’m ready for flannel weather myself. I want weather where it doesn’t feel wrong to drink hot beverages in the middle of the day.

But until then I won’t waste my life by wishing the current season away. I will continue to look for and seek out the daily miracles and small blessings available for those with eyes to see them.

I’ll continue to pray to be in the moment as often as possible and to be fully awake to the here and now instead of daydreaming about future possibilities.

I will give thanks early and often, because I still think that thanksgiving opens my eyes to see God in the world around me.

And I will enjoy my wonderful almond milk pumpkin spice creamer with my coffee in my Star Wars Death Star mug for as long as possible.