Faith, Grace, and Hope

Drawn by Pastor Julia Seymour, 9/13/18

A friend recently expressed frustration that empowering people to take ownership and leadership takes a lot more time than doing something one's self. This is true... in the short term. In the long term, empowerment is the more efficient means of reaching a given destination because empowerment involves honest recognition of one's own limitations, the skills of others, the need for community and relationship, and the reality of having a few more eyes on an issue.  As a person who often makes an idol of efficiency, I confess that I have sometimes let empowerment fall by the wayside. This is not because I lack the skills to empower others, but because I haven't taken the time to offer the opportunity or been willing to let something flounder when others didn't step forward. I have come to realize, through time and experience, that enabling is not actually an efficient path to any destination other than the Land of Resentment, Burnout Island, or Frustratio...

Genesis 15:1-6             What is God’s plan? Many times, in some of the darkest moments of our lives, people (well-meaning people) tell us that God has a plan for our pain, that what has happened to us makes sense in a grand scheme, that we are not hurting in vain. Yet think about what that says about God: that God uses pain as a means to an end, to bring us where God wants us to be? That there is a long-range plan, full of illnesses and pains, which is how God is bringing the kin-dom into fruition? That the forces that oppose God, including cancer, chaos, and criminal actions, do not really have any power- though we go through the motions of renouncing them at baptism.             If God’s plan for the world is down to the tiny details, what’s our part in it? Do we play a role? Are the encouragements in the creation story, the relationship that we se...