Living in the Spirit
May 17, 2016

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

The Lord created [wisdom] at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago. 

then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. –Proverbs 8:22, 30-31

I wonder how much delight the Lord takes in the human race now. Like a loving parents I am sure God delights in our growth and development, our stepping closer to the ways we were created to be rather than falling into distraction’s traps. The inhabited world is a challenging diversity of good and evil within which we must live and move and have our being. God’s gift of resilience has always been needed, never more so than today.

How do we bridge the gaps between our silos of understanding that abound today? One looks at an issue and sees it as progress; another views it as the path to hell. Can we pull ourselves out of our fixed positions enough to try to see another’s point of view? Can we overcome any sense of privilege we might have that makes us think our way is not just the right way but the only way to live in sync with God?

If we accept that God delights in the whole of the human race, then we must accept that we are to follow God’s lead. I worked in a children’s hospital for 18 months back in the mid 1970’s where I saw enough joy and pain to last a lifetime. Parents having to deal with children born without intestines, spina bifida—where the spinal cord at some point is outside the protection of the spine, and children born with parts of both gender’s organs or chromosomes. Why such birth related defects happen is still being studied. What is not left for consideration is whether they are to be loved as children of God. They are even when they grow up to be adults.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we let our own fears overshadow the nature to love others that you instilled in each of us. Make us whole in our attitudes as well as our bodies. 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 American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.