There is a sad reality haunting your community and mine, your life and mine. The reality is that most people that wear a mantle of God have no idea of what their God has and is saying. My statement is meant to be a stinging indictment. When one looks at the heart of our shared views of God, the very core one finds that we share some common beliefs. Kindness is always preferred to exploitation. Compassion is held in higher esteem than wealth. Respect is preferred over power. Community trumps self. Actions, individual and corporate, matter. Yet, the reality is that our views do not make a difference in how we shop, drive, look at life, treat each other, or even in how we treat ourselves.
In short, our actions tell others as well as our souls that we do not know, cannot understand, or do not believe in what the God we say we embrace really stands for. If we did or do, life would be different.
As negative as my message is intended to be, there is hope. Everything pivots in the moment at hand. We can embrace kindness. We had hold compassion. We can choose to respect. We can look at life through the eyes of community, seeing others and ourselves in very different ways. We hold freedom within. We have the ability, in this moment, to choose our path. We can embrace what is real.
When people have, “this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.” (Acts 13.49) When individuals have, lives are changed. It starts in one heart, from the inside out. It is shared through our actions in words, steps, and relationship. As we unconditionally accept others where they are, our gift becomes the initial transformative experience. From this, another truth seed finds it residence in their lives.
There are many bad things, in your life and mine, that are real. There are many good things waiting, ready to live and grow. We are called to nurtured and give birth to these seeds. They can be real.
