Lori, Sam and I went for a walk yesterday, we made our way down Rose, cut over to Cherry, and back to Brookview Golf Course, where we took a walking trail back into a neighborhood and made our way back home. It was a beautiful day to be out.
Yesterday felt kind of like an awakening. Do you know that feeling you get when you get up early in the morning and you kind of go stumbling out of your house on the way to school or work? Like you’re up, but you’re not quite altogether ready yet? It’s often the way I feel on Sunday mornings before I’ve had coffee.
That was what the whole neighborhood felt like yesterday. People were outside, looking around, kind of assessing the “damage” from the winter. “What am I going to need to do to get the place ready for summer?” There were people cleaning out garages and moving winter decorations. I was able to get out and take down all the Christmas lights that had been frozen solid in the shrubs in front of our house.
I saw neighbors out greeting each other and talking, like they hadn’t seen each other in months…which is probably true. In the winter, we just drive into our garages and head to warmth as quickly as we can.
Yesterday was like the whole neighborhood was waking up after a long, winter sleep.
Life is cyclical. There are beginnings and there are endings. There are seasons, which often drive our frame of mind. The Christmas season is different for us emotionally than mid-winter, which is different from spring and yet again different from summer.
This reminds me that God continues to work in the world. Our God is a God of perpetual motion. God continues to create and to be at work. It’s not like the world is just set on “auto-pilot.” Rather, God’s hand can be found in anything and everything. Part of our task, as people of faith, is to always be looking…to see God at work and to name that. To say “this is what God is up to!” for a world that might not see it on their own.
When Jesus promises, in Matthew 28:20b that “…remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” we tend to think of that as a futuristic promise…an apocalyptic promise. And it is. But it is also a present day promise. Jesus inserted the word “always.” As in I’ve been with you in the past, I’ll be with you in the future, and I am with you right now…at this moment. Always. Now. Every moment.
Yesterday it was easy to see. It was clear that God was up to something. Warmth…spring…people out and about…relationships rekindled…
There are other days when it isn’t so easy. God’s work can feel more hidden. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t up to something; it just means that it might be harder for us to see. It means that we might need to look.
Look and see what the Lord is up to. Look and see how God is interacting within your life. Every day can be an awakening. Every day we can stumble out of bed and look around, and see what God is up to. Every day is a new discovery of God’s love and grace.
Look and see!
Peace,
Pastor Todd
Test Driving Theology 