Living in the Spirit
June 8, 2022
Scripture Reading: Psalm 8
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
I wonder if God regrets giving us dominion over the works of God’s hands. We surely can mess things up very quickly. Oklahoma is known for its dangerous weather but even for someone who has lived here for decades, I have not seen weather like we are having now. It seems we daily beat some weather record. We are more and more having to deal with issues that demand the whole world to work well together to address everything from climate change to pandemics. We do not do a good job of addressing these issues as individual nations much less having all work together. God created us too and I cannot help but think God created us with the innate ability to rise above our greed and lust for power and find common ground for the Common Good.
Oklahoma released several prisoners a few years ago because they had been sentenced to extreme sentences for non-violent crimes. The state reduced the sentences for new offenders and then realized that several of our current prisoners had already served more time than the current sentence for the crime they committed. So, we did a mass release. What we did not take into consideration was that prison itself changes people and that many of those released needed help adjusting to the outside world again. Moses dealt with this in the wilderness after leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
Humans seek what is called homeostasis, which describes a tendency toward maintenance of relatively stable social conditions among groups*. We prefer to live with what we know even if it is not the best way to survive or thrive. When forces outside ourselves alter our normal patterns, we quickly search for new homeostasis, for example, how to succeed in prison and then how to succeed out of prison. Right now, we seem to wake up every morning with a new pattern of living from weird weather to pandemics to mass shootings. At each point in meeting these challenges, the best way to learn how to deal with them is to follow the guidance of our world’s original Creator. Thus, we must take the time to analyze whether our response to the world is in keeping with God’s intentions for the world and adjust to follow God’s intentions.
Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we let the challenges in our world get the better of us. Grant us your peace so we can be carriers of your peace to others facing the same challenges that we are. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.