EQUIPPING YOURSELF TO REFLECT & SPREAD PEACE IN A CHALLENGING TIME: Part 1

In many faith traditions the words: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice & be glad in it” are frequently used as a call to worship at the start of each new day. The God we worship is Sovereign & full of grace & mercy. He alone created the universe, all people & everything living in it & proclaimed it “good.” Throughout the Bible & through our own experiences with God we know that God is an eternal, all knowing, all powerful, steadfast, righteous, just, compassionate, healing, ever loving presence that guides us, is inclusive & loves us all unconditionally & forgives us. Through His grace, God created all human beings in His image. As those created in His image, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be God’s instruments in the world to build up His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, reflecting & spreading His peace, love, mercy, justice & healing in this world through our very being. That is our calling & our purpose. The power to be peacemakers for God is found in God & not in us. It is God who does the healing & brings peace. He is the vine & we are the branches, cut off from Him we can do nothing. Without His strength & power our deeds would be in vain. So, if we believe in God & are faithful to His calling, obviously it is critical for us to remain focused on our living God regardless of the darkness that is going on around us. When we allow ourselves to step or drift away from God’s guiding & loving light, we become weak, broken, & overwhelmed.

The “call” to be witnesses for God & to live reflecting His Light & Love for the world is both a blessing as well as a challenge for us. As long as we keep our lives focused on God our Creator & trust in His steadfast love & healing grace for all of creation, it is fairly easy to witness for God & reflect His image through our living for we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. However, at the time of this writing, I think we’d all agree that there is no doubt, that all of God’s creation is currently living in a time of extraordinary challenge which in many cases, makes it difficult for us to consistently keep our focus on our calling to reflect God’s image in which we are created. There are so many untruths & negative messages & decisions that are subsequently being made through political leaders, social media, artificial intelligence, etc., that are inconsistent with the ways of our Holy God in whose image we are called to live into & to spread, that it can be not only confusing for us but can also be very overwhelming for us, causing us to lose our way on our spiritual journey in service to our Holy Lord’s teachings. The question before us then is, what can we do to remain in God’s light in those times when we feel overwhelmed, hopeless, & weakened by all the darkness that is swirling around us?

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy