This week: God as beyond words. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . Once again this last Sunday I was caught up in the word from the prophet Jeremiah. Like the words of Isaiah that we have heard over Advent and Christmas, we are handed the image of God as beyond words. Yes, all sorts of words are used by these insight-full poets but the words - in all their wonder and beauty - do not give us the fullness of our God. Our God - the God that rescues and saves and delivers an forgives and offer us a new future and takes away our fears is more than the words we can use to tell the world about God. Therefore, God as beyond words invites us to live. Yes, like the word mad flesh - live. In our living comes more of the fullness of God than any of our words can reveal. Most folks eventually get tired of words. But when those word reveal a life that is as real as the day-to-day life around us, we have stepped beyond words and into the living presence of God made flesh - of God as words made into the action and life that words attempt to get at. O God of love and new life, inspire us to we to the world around us - a living word that spells out a bit of your gracious Reign. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as beyond words. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . God as beyond words makes this exercise in devotions moot. For anything that is written is never the end of all that is to be said. It is merely like a dot on an 'i' in the middle of an entire novel. God as beyond words takes us farther out from our world than we can ever imagine. For once we have written a word about this God - it is not enough and it cannot reveal the entirety of our God. God as beyond words is an invitation to never stop reach out for more of this God - for we never have it all in hand. I am always amazed - maybe disturbed - by religious folks who try to say they have defined God - or defined what God is like - or defined how God thinks or acts. God as beyond words turns such confidence into a comedy routine. God as beyond words make the fundamentalist and the literalist into liars who do not even realize that the god they have capture and hold for themselves and a few select others is not the God who raised Jesus from the dead so as to take us beyond all that we have tried to control. O God of love and new life, help us to laugh at our attempts to limit you to the vocabulary and images we are able to speak. For there - beyond our great ideas and notions and fine learning comes the eternal unfolding of your being. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as beyond words. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . God as beyond words takes us into a reality we are not able to pin down. For once we think we are able to grasp God and have God in a position in which we claim to understand God - we have fallen short. God as beyond words it the God who is forever beyond us and forever available to us. We do not determine that position of God. God as beyond words is the God that is filled with laughter each and every time we claim to know just how thinks or just how God would act or just how God will be manifest among us. God as beyond words will always have a way of being known by images that will expose God and yet, at the same time, keep God covered. This last weekend I began the task of introducing the confirmation class to the Apostles' Creed. Our greatest task is to unpack the words to which we tend to cling as though they are magically correct. My expectation is that each student - in his/her own way - is able to come up with more words and more images so that God is not tied up our bound up by us. God as beyond words may start with words - but then there is experience - surprise - inspiring vision - actions. We may have words in place but then - we need more words or maybe just - silence - complete silence or a cacophony of sounds that endlessly distract us from the words we think we need to sum up God. O God of love and new life, thrill us with you eternal presence and call us out of our need to control who you are becoming among us. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as insecurity. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . Insecurity is not a great feeling. Often, we act 'out-of-character' when we are insecure. Then again, insecurity can really expose the character that can be hidden behind the front we try to put forward. God as insecurity is the God that is attempting to shape our character into that which reflects the Reign of God. For most of us that character is not naturally ours. Therefore, the insecurity we must face is not what we think we want or need. But this God as insecurity keeps nudging us and inviting us and holding us up even when we leave the safe harbor of our illusions of safety and security. God as insecurity puts us in a new place - a beginning in the middle of that which appeared to be an end. O God of love and new life, open up this thing called the future within you Reign. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as insecurity. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . God as insecurity is looking out at the year that is already starting to show itself and yet we are not certain where things will go or how we will finish the year. God as insecurity abides with us and will be with us right along the way no matter what happens along the way. Yes, there is a bit of insecurity when we trust our God to be the God that is promised. For that God does not promise to give us life as we want or expect it. God as insecurity will offer us a year of faithfulness and it may not look all that appealing. Just think of Abraham who is told to offer his only son, Isaac - utter insecurity - utter fear - utter confusion. But we are invited to follow this God even when the path ahead of us in not clearly in our control. God as insecurity draws us into questions that may no have answers and predicaments that may stretch us beyond who we think we are or who we think we have been. I don't think any of us want to go there - and yet, God bids us to come. O God of love and new life, lead the way beyond our control - we will follow. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as insecurity. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . God as insecurity throws me off my game. My game is the safe one - it is the one that does not disturb how I want things to turn out - it is quite under my control - it is only going to go so far - it will be well within the bounds of the limits I have set. God as insecurity gets a kick out of watching me play my game. For in the final analysis, my game is not secure at all because I cannot make things work out just as I want them to work out. God as insecurity doesn't work according to the rules I have set up for my game. God as insecurity changes the path right when I think I am in control of every step. And then, when I stumble and fall, I think I have lost everything. Rather, when I stumble and fall - when I am not feeling secure in my own view of life - I am then able to see new ways of entering the day. When this God as insecurity bids me to come and follow, it never seems safe and secure - like walking on into Jerusalem when the religious folks are not pleased with how things are going. And then, comes new life out of what I thought would be the end of me. Amazing. O God of love and new life, continue to amaze us with your call to follow even as we seem to be trembling. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as insecurity. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . I think we usually want to hear just the opposite - God as security. I don't disagree with that. We read and sing things like 'God is our refuge and our strength..." - all of which is meant to calm our hearts in the middle of the turmoil and uncertainty of our lives. And yet, this week I want to make sure we hear the part about how God's invitation to walk within God's Reign may throw a wretch into our fine plans as to how we will be secure. God as insecurity is the God who breaks into our world as we want it and expect it. God as insecurity shakes us up so that we do not simply lean on the kind of security that we want for ourselves right now and right here. God as insecurity is taking us for a ride and we may not think that this ride is the most secure journey of the day. God as insecurity challenges our vision of how our lives will be held together and what will be the foundation of our lives. We all have this notion of how our world and life should go and what we need to do to secure that notion or vision. Well, God as insecurity does not settle for what we want to create - for there is only one Creator and this God has a vision for life that will not match up with our visions. O God of love and new life, yes we want things our way - and yet, we know that beyond the security we envision for ourselves - which is rarely secure at all - comes the life in which you continue to shape us and bring us into the rest only you can provide. Amen. |
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