Living in the Spirit
July 27, 2018
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. –Ephesians 3:20-21
While my life is nothing compared to what Paul and his fellow workers in the faith faced, I have experienced times that try souls as Thomas Paine described the folly of getting enough citizens to back the cause of the American Revolution.
I was a grade schooler when the cold war was raging overhearing the news on our first television while practicing drills in school to protect ourselves from the threat of atomic bombs. Little did we know that sitting under our desks covering the backs of our heads with our hands would have had no effect. I had nightmares of huge “Russians” whatever they were that looked amazingly like the Star Wars metal soldiers marching to get me. I wonder what nightmares we are inflicting on our children today?
By the last half of the 60’s, I was in college caught in cultural change as the Watts Riots tore at the heart of my concept of my homeland as did the war in Vietnam.
Working in public welfare after college gave me hope that we could open doors for the impoverished. That hope was drastically damaged by the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 that curtailed services. One of the byproducts of this philosophical change was skyrocketing child abuse and neglect that have not been adequately addressed to this day.
What challenges me, all of us for that matter, today is that others see these same events in a totally different way than I perceive them. This has led to our living in a divide-and-conquer world.
Jesus’ followers were called to oneness. While it is easy at times to get discouraged in our quest for that oneness, we must not give up because it is the only way to the shalom, the wholeness, the peace that is the Kingdom of God, a world ruled by love. The writer of Ephesians reminds us of the source where our power for unleashing shalom derives.
Prayer: Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.