Daily Meditations
It is so easy to make snap judgments about others. Today I did a mediation. My initial thoughts had we favoring one side. I always have to shove these thoughts aside and wait to hear the whole story. The whole story is the answer and we don’t often know it. We judge without understanding. Judging is not up to us. Understanding is.
What a sad life it must be….believing in nothing. Our link to the divine brings us closer to the world we live in. It helps us see the beauty in everything around us. How can you live without this?
Hopefully we each have someone who loves us. Those who love forgive our mistakes and look beyond to the person beneath. God has promised that we are each loved this way by him. His love sees all that we are…warts and everything. We are each loved.
Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
I have always love this image. The idea of God choosing to create a world is…I can’t find a word wonderful enough. The Spirit of moving. Notice that in this version Spirit is capitalized. The Spirit is a facet of God. God is not one thing but many things. A God way beyond our understanding. Know that this is God. Infinite and unknowable until He chooses to become a man.
Sometimes life is painful. It doesn’t matter whether the pain is physical, mental or both. Pain can bring on anxiety and fear. it makes us question if there is anything that can help us. We wonder where God is or if he is there at all. But even in the darkest pain there is hope and hope comes from god. God turns us to hope and helps us learn from the pain. We are like pottery made beautiful by the fire of the kiln.
We pray to God for many things. We pray for others, for health, about out daily lives. The list is too long to list. Sometimes our prayers are answered but it is not the answer we wanted. The answer can make us question how our beliefs. That can be scary. Don’t worry. Those answers will cause us to grow in the knowledge of God and his ways.
It is not our responsibility to protect God. God can take care of Himself/Herself. Too often someone will want to defend their view of God. They want everyone else to understand what God wants. The trouble is it is what God wants according to them. Let us not fall into the trap of defending God. I truly believe God is fine. Just trust that, if blessed, you will hear God tell you the plans for you. He/She will not be interested in updating you about others. We each have our own perspective….our viewing point is not God’s.
Ephesians 2:7-10 —definition of grace7 that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— 9 not because of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We can’t earn our way with God. We have been granted grace through the sacrifice of Christ. None of us can say we are better than another. We are the same…god’s creation.
We were created to do good works. Not to win any awards or make ourselves noticed but to follow God’s plan for us.
Grace is a gift. Accept it.
Christianity cannot be bound by ethnicity or nationality. This puts it in essential conflict with any group that wants to domesticate the message for its own “patriotic” purposes–Richard Rohr
Rohr’s quote may go against the grain with some. If you follow through with this thought it would also include denominations who feel that if you don’t agree with their ideas you are on the outside. Christianity must be inclusive. It takes in everyone. Remember we are all wrong about God. Our thoughts are too finite. We can only grasp God with our limited minds. To think otherwise is foolish. I certainly don’t presume to know the mind of God. Do you?
Listening
I wonder
if Mary ever wished
that her son could walk an easier path
I wonder
how she learned
to accept things as they were
I wonder
if it’s different
if you’ve heard an angel speak and listened
©Suzanne Boyd 2018
Hear God in Other Voices 