We are bad at drawing healthy boundaries. We give and give and give until we have nothing left to offer anyone. Neither God nor our neighbors get our best. The practice of Sabbath helps us learn to say No, to live within the healthy boundaries God created us for.
Continue readingWe’re told to “Follow our hearts,” but we know desires can be destructive. How do we know the difference between desires that bring life and those that lead to hurt? Jesus invites us to love God with all our hearts, and discovering what he meant by that gives us the key. When we allow the Spirit to order our desires, we find the path to a fully human life!
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We think of forgiveness as something we do with another person. But what happens when the other person isn't willing - or able - to reconcile? How can we find freedom from what was done to us? Joseph's story ends with a new world made possible by forgiveness and hope.
When she was 19 years old, Philomena Lee had a baby. She barely knew the father and, having been raised in a conservative religious home in early 20th-century Ireland, had never learned where babies come from.
When her parents learned she was pregnant, they put her in a convent to have the baby in secret. And after the baby was born, the convent adopted the boy to a couple.
Philomena never saw her son again.
In 2003, when she was 70 years old, Philomena confessed to her other children that they had an older brother they’d never met. Her daughter convinced a British journalist to help Philomena find her lost son.
Eventually, they learned that his adoptive parents were American. Her son had worked in politics in Washington, D. C. and had died in 1993.
Then they learned that her son had made three separate trips to the convent where he’d been born seeking information about his birth mother.
I want to pause Philomena’s story here and ask what you would do in her place.
I’d be furious. I would feel a deep sense of sadness. I’d want justice.
But what does justice look like for Philomena Lee? The nun who’d overseen all this was long dead. Her son was dead.
Let’s talk about forgiveness. So often we think of forgiveness as an external movement, something that happens between two people. If you wrong me, forgiving you is what I do when we reconcile.
But I want to suggest that we’ve got it backwards. Reconciliation, the healing of the relationship between us, is good. But it’s not the same as forgiveness.
After all, sometimes reconciliation isn’t possible. It wasn’t for Philomena. And sometimes the person who wronged us isn’t willing to change. Sometimes reconciliation can be dangerous!
But forgiveness is something we can do whether or not the other person is willing or able to reconcile. Forgiveness is a process we enter into, a choice we make again and again.
When we choose to forgive, we create a new world of possibilities. We find freedom from what was done to us. So today is about learning how to forgive.
God’s Dream is inevitable, but it’s not always easy to achieve. How do we stay faithful to God even when we’re in the pits? Joseph’s journey to Pharaoh’s court illustrates a life of integrity and faithful hope in a God who is always with us and working – even in the pit!
Continue readingDreamers are prophets – people who help us see the future God is calling us to make a reality. How do we resist God’s Dream? And how can we be sure we’re all-in?
Continue readingIt’s easy to find God in the good moments. But we struggle to find God in the bad places. Why is wrestling with the rough patches worth it? And what good news is there for those of us who feel like life has us in a chokehold?
Continue readingHave you ever won a battle but lost a war? Maybe you got the upper hand in an argument but lost the relationship. Or landed the deal at the expense of a colleague. Or got your way but caused an alienation that’s ongoing to this day. We’re often too short-sighted, and allow the wrong priorities to cloud our judgment. Jacob’s 20-year feud with his uncle Laban shows us the fruit of that kind of conflict. How can we seek God’s grace and affirm the dignity of everyone we meet?
Continue readingWe all know what it feels like to hit rock bottom. But we struggle to imagine that God knows what it feels like too. We can’t believe that God is with us in those low times of our lives. Jacob’s encounter with God at Bethel is a powerful proclamation that we are never outside of God’s love. God is the best friend we could ask for – especially when we’re in low places.
Continue readingWe’ve all be stuck as the person who doesn’t get a say. That can make it hard to be faithful to God. How do we follow God’s will when we’re not calling the shots? The story of Rebekah and her two sons, Jacob and Esau, is the story of a woman with no authority who found a way to be faithful to God. What can we learn from her example?
Continue readingIt’s hard to read the stories of God’s amazing miracles and not wonder, “Where’s mine?” A lot of us feel less like Abraham and more like his servant – the one who never saw the action. But his story of connecting Isaac and Rebekah is a powerful reminder that when we only look for God in the miraculous, we miss God at work in the mundane.
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