Where will the great American experiment take us? I would rather hope that we are more concerned about where our faith journey takes us. I think that as we get older, with more of our lives in the rearview mirror, we are increasingly excited, if not curious, about what the destination looks like. Anything else is just going back and forth. Repeating the same goings and comings. Off to work, back home from work. Off on vacation, back from vacation. We cannot know with great certainty what our ultimate destination looks like, but we sure know where it will be.

Democracies, historically, run their course within 200-300 years. Guess what, fellow citizens of the good ole U.S.A.? Maybe this great idea, this experiment, this journey from the eastern shores of the Atlantic will weather all of the mistrust, division, fear, and hubris that we have allowed to ferment. Or we will find ourselves as God’s people Israel, in an exile of our own making.

I am profoundly overwhelmed by God’s grace. The vocation I share with my brothers and sisters in Christ, all in ministry, already and still becoming disciples – this I treasure. Being convinced, beyond all seemingly reasonable doubts, that “neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

 I may have doubts about many temporal things, like evil powers holding sway over our lives. Many things that would likely get me in the proverbial boiling cauldron for bringing up, lest they offend my neighbor of opposite opinion. I am confident that we will all figure this experiment out, as we progress on our one-way destination. I am also confident that

 God will continue to love us unconditionally!  

Pastor Art

Reposted from 2017