Today's Thoughts...

Today’s Thoughts: Throughout the scriptures we encounter many things that seem to go against what the world tells us is important. We must lose to gain.  We must die in to live. We must be lost to be found. We must be last to be first and our readings today take us even further by telling us that we must be poor to be rich, we must be blind to see, deaf to hear and lame to walk. In other words, repeatedly we are reminded that our way is not God’s way.
 
How can we understand these perplexing paradoxes that the scripture presents to us? Well perhaps by understanding one simple position in scripture – life is God’s gift. Unless we are grounded, focuses and invested in God’s way we don’t have life. This is not a solitary journey. It is a relationship, a friendship and if we choose to walk alone then we will be blind, deaf and lame.
 
Everything comes from God, especially the gift of life that is why we value it so much. Throughout his ministry Jesus worked at restoring God’s gift of life by teaching us how to gain by losing, how to die to live, how to be lost in order to be found. Jesus made sure that the blind could see, the deaf could hear and the lame could walk so that all could encounter the gift of God’s presence, life, grace and love. Jesus lived Isaiah’s proclamation in our first reading, “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong; fear not! Here is your God.”
 
And yet not all heard, saw or walked toward the presence of God in their life. They remained blind, deaf and lame because they thought they could do it all by themselves. They placed value and importance on worldly things that would not last. They forgot that all of life is from God.
 
I know I use this phrase often, but it seems to sit at the heart of our scriptures today because they are asking us to “Let go and let God.” They are asking us to die with Christ in order to live with Christ. They are asking us to place ourselves in God’s loving hands so that we can see, hear and walk in the presence of God.
 
Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone!