Happy Thanksgiving!
God's manifold grace. A day to be grateful and to accept responsibility.
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. — Colossians 3:17
Two gauges of spiritual maturity to consider today. The first is gratitude. Do we recognize that everything we have is a gift from God— his grace? Can we show him our gratitude? Another gauge is responsibility— faithful stewards of the many forms of God's grace. We enjoy his gifts as we share them with others.
As
The Lord's prayer and our participation require child-like faith.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. — Matthew 6:10
If it's what we pray for, it's what we should want and work for. So, how is it in heaven? We need imagination for that, something God gave us the capacity for. Most of us were best at it when we were children. Dependency, trust, and imagination: is this what it means to have child-like faith?
Pond Water
Let's be clear.
In my office, I have a jar of pond water. It's a mixture of grit, sand, silt, and other pond-y stuff. When I shake it up, I'm reminded of how most of us move through our days. Life's ingredients suspended by the churn. When we want some clarity, we can pause, allowing the big bits to settle. But if we need things to be really clear, it will take more time, a lot more time.
- discipleship
- love
- Holy Spirit
- humility
- church
- politics & society
- mission & witness
- holiness
- parable & metaphor
- identity
- eternal life
- doubt & deconstruction
- leadership
- grace
- justice
- scripture
- spiritual life
- advent & christmas
- poverty & compassion
- imagination & creativity
- technology & ai
- knowing God
- human dignity
- faith & trust
- incarnation & cross
- kingdom of God
- community
- reconciliation
- spiritual formation
- epistemology
- prayer
- gratitude
- culture
- creation & nature
The God of the Bible looks like Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. It would be just like him to go to the cross.