Devotion - Thursday, December 10

As the fall term comes to an end, I want to send you home with the assurance that you will be missed and that I will keep you in my prayers while we are apart.  I know that you are heading home, where you will be safe and loved and cared for.  (Though I do not mean to ignore those for whom a return home brings it's own anxieties.)  However, being separated also leaves open the door that something may happen to you or to me while we are not together.  I will pray that this does not happen.

The world around us appears to be spiraling downward into increased expressions of anger and mistrust and fear.  Do not let the world's attention to these things alter the way we have been invited to see that which God has created.  There is anger and mistrust and fear out there, but this is not the good creation which God makes and sets us in the middle of the garden.  Those expressions are the hidden corners of those who want what we were never intended to have. Those expressions are the underbelly of a desire to build towers that reach to the heavens (Genesis 11) or be recognized in the public square (Matthew 23).

Micah teaches us what we need to know:  Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 23 instructs us: do not neglect the weightier matters of the law: Justice and mercy and faith.

I do not know how the anger and mistrust and fear of our world will be set aside and turned around.  But let's refuse to allow the world to turn us around and away from the way of God, from the way of justice and peace and kindness.

Be careful over the break.  Be careful as you travel and as you experience holiday cheer.  But above all be careful that you do not allow the chatter around you to distract you from what you have come to know and to affirm: God is good and the goodness of God's creation is found in all things.  Do not allow the world to turn you away from the weighty matters of God's Word.

PS:  I will be back with you come January 6.