September 28, 2009
GOD'S PLAN - OUR HOPE
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
Jeremiah 29:12

This is the second verse of our 2009 Stewardship theme - God's Plan - Our Hope based on Jeremiah 29:11-13. Then you will call upon me? The statement, then you will call and the promise, I will listen, follows the declaration of God in verse 11 - I know the plans I have for you. God knows. That is where our HOPE and future can be found. In God knowing. God is intimately aware of your deepest needs. God is always acting ahead of us and for us which means when we call upon the Lord, when we cry out for help because our world has been turned upside down by loss or pain or sorrow or despair God is already at work to bring about the plan to prosper us and not to harm us to give us a hope and a future.
Call upon the Lord today. God is listening.

September 29, 2009
WAIT IN HOPE
We wait in HOPE for the LORD; our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our HOPE in you.
Psalm 33:20-22

Waiting is not easy for most people. I've been known to drive out of my way to avoid stopping at a traffic light. I've also put grocery items that I need back on the shelf just to qualify for the express check out. Those are obviously silly examples. It's more difficult when the waiting is serious. When we encounter situations that defy resolution, when our deepest needs remain unmet, when our questions go unanswered waiting borders on unbearable. In those times the only way to wait is with hope. This is not hope in ourselves or our abilities, not hope that we can avoid or circumvent circumstance, not even hope that it will all go away or get better, but hope that in this moment God's love will not fail us. And in that we rejoice because we trust that God is not unaware of our need and is working to help and protect. In that hope we patiently endure which, of course, is how people of faith wait.

September 30, 2009
THE POOR HAVE HOPE
He saves the needy from the sword in the mouth of the crafty; He saves the weak from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.
Job 5:15-16

This is a word of correction for the theology of God helps those who help themselves and the false god of self sufficiency. The almighty and all powerful God whom the universe cannot contain was himself born into poverty to peasant parents in an occupied land. That should tell us something about God. The poor have hope because God in Jesus experienced poverty. The needy have hope because God in Jesus experienced in need. The weak have hope because God in Jesus was weak. So we have hope because God in Jesus has inhabited our flesh, knows our need, our weakness, our poverty. But God's intimate knowledge of us is only the beginning of hope. The end of hope is that God in Jesus died our death, for us, ahead of us, and after three days broke free of death's grip that we would experience the riches of God's grace.

October 1, 2009
MY HOPE IS IN YOU
Humans are mere phantoms as they go to and fro: They bustle about, but only in vain; they heap up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My HOPE is in you. Save me from all my transgressions.
Psalm 39:6-8a

Psalm 39 was written some 3000 years ago and even then human beings were engaged in vain striving. If this commentary on the human condition was true then it is even more so now. Our bustling to and fro verges on 24 / 7. And the pace just seems to increase. We work harder for less. We have more toys but less time. And just when we think we're secure and take a sigh of relief the market crashes or for those who live closer to the bottom line, an unexpected bill busts the budget.

So what can we do when so many of these forces are outside our control? Like the psalmist lamenting his condition we confess that we live as phantoms fully caught up in this world. And like the psalmist we look to the Lord to save us from our willful participation in things that ultimately do not satisfy. So take a deep cleansing breath and invite God to do the saving work of slowing the pace of your striving. Then get back to work, but hopefully with more substance than a phantom.

October 2, 2009
HOPE THAT IS RENEWED EVERY MORNING
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall? and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have HOPE: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:19-23

While there is something to be said for Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and latching on to the affirmative more often than not we live with Mr. In-between. It's the tug of war of memory. Past failures return with fresh guilt. We remember we are forgiven. The loss we thought healed butts heads with the promise of all things made new. The debilitating fears we thought overcome put down by Lo I am with you always.

It is in the in-between, neither suppressing the negative as if it was of no consequence nor dwelling on it as if it were the only truth of our lives, that Hope lives. Hope that is renewed every morning because yesterday's troubles used up all we had. And so we rise with the dawn and call on the Lord for the new day's allotment of fresh hope. In that Hope we are confident, we will not be consumed by the memory of the past, nor will our soul remain downcast. Now that is a positive worth accentuating.

Statement of Our Faith