O LORD, we think we have it all figured out.

We are so certain that our ways are conformed to Your ways, and yet Scripture tells us that Your ways are higher- higher than this one moment, our frantic news cycle, our own all-absorbing ambitions and power grabs. We proclaim our oneness with You even as we reject and fear and refuse to love our neighbor- whichever neighbor we can be convinced to divide from and despise today.

God, help us.

When will we ever learn, Lord?

We prefer our labels to love.

We offer our political posturing rather than words of peace.

We choose noisy crowds over nuanced conversations.

We seize the win of an instant over the wisdom that can come only forth from seasons of reflection.

Lord, help us to recognize our faults and to appreciate our failures.

We are so limited, so small, so petty, so forgetful of the glory You offer in Christ.

And yet, we declare with the those of old, “we would see Jesus.”

Where is Jesus, Lord?
Where is Your visible presence among us?
Where are those called by Your name?
Where are the people of God in a world full of anger, bitterness, and self-seeking?

You answer again in the still, small voice of grace, and remind us that, “My people are right where they always have been…”

• Proclaiming good news.
• Speaking truth in compassion to the straying.
• Declaring the truth in boldness to those bewitched by power.
• Comforting the hurting, praying with the broken, and raising the oppressed.
• Singing out hope in the darkness of despair.
• Setting prisoners at liberty and lifting the burdens of the downcast.
• Admitting shortcomings, acknowledging sins, and turning from wrongs.
• Serving the poor, healing the sick, and sitting with sorrowing.
• Fighting for change, cleaning up messes, and making amends.
• Listening to struggling strangers on benches, on buses, and in bars.
• Hearing the unspoken tensions that echo each night in hurting homes, broken communities, and lonely hearts.
• Serving all those that go unserved.
• Noticing those who others miss.
• Loving all those that go unloved.
• Pointing each soul to Jesus.

When it seems that all is lost, that every knee has gladly bowed in submission to the gods of this world, that all have compromised the glory of the eternal for the gratification of the momentary- remember the gates of death and hell have not prevailed.

They have not.

They will not.

They cannot.

Hold fast and take courage for He who promised is faithful.