"I Am With You"

And David became greater and greater,
for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.

2 Samuel 5:10

Here's the complete reading

This is John, a 90+ year-old Maine lobsterman. Like most lobstermen, he's up around 4 a.m. checking the weather then heading to the docks. Around 6 a.m. he's picking up his stern man, buying bait and heading to sea checking some of his 150 traps. Some traps will be empty others will have a decent haul. By late in the day he's headed to the docks again selling his catch.

John also knows of lobstermen whose boats sank and had to swim ashore. He knows of others that never returned home.

John returns at the end of the day "for the Lord was with him."

"I am with you," says the Lord. Beginning with Moses (Ex.3:12), continuing through David, then through Jesus (Mt:28:20). The Scriptures assure us, "I am with you." 

We may behave like David and Bathsheba or Judas. The awareness of our own sin may leave us feeling as though we are drowning in our own shipwrecked life unable to make it ashore. 

"I am with you" says the Lord. Read the story of Paul's shipwreck and the lives saved. Read again the story of Jesus calming the sea and rescuing the disciples. Reread some of the other stories of salvation in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  

"I am with you," says he Lord as you live each day or as face life's greatest challenges. Whether you come home with empty traps or a decent catch, "I am with you."

Thanks be to God.

Living Like Jesus

“Come away to a deserted place 

all by yourselves and rest a while.”

Mark 6:31

Elaine loves cooking. She loves getting out a recipe, going over the ingredients, and assembling them. She loves mixing the ingredients and putting them in the pot or pan to correctly cook them. Most of all, she enjoys placing the finished dish on the dinner table with its enticing aroma salivating everyone's palate. After grace, comes enjoying the delicious meal.  

But Elaine does other cooking. In one church she prepared a monthly meal for a homeless shelter. In another, she was part of a team that prepared 16 pans of ziti each month which were distributed to several shelters. She was also part of a team that prepared sandwiches for a "Midnight Run" to Manhattan for distribution to street people. In several churches, she was involved in the CROP hunger walk (including co-coordinating one for 13 years). She is an active member of Bread for the World for over 40 years. Currently, she takes our church's food donations to the local food pantry.

Elaine is sustained and energized because she is living like Jesus.

Living like Jesus means having compassion for "the least of these" and acting to care for them. Jesus spent time "Searching the Scriptures" as Wesley called it. Living like Jesus is coming to the Lord's table and be refreshed. Living like Jesus includes times of quiet rest in a deserted place to listen to God.

Each of us has been called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live like Jesus by using God's gifts to work at building God's kingdom. 

Reflect on how you can use your unique gifts to live more like Jesus.

What kinds of practices have helped you live more like Jesus?

God's Healing Love

Acadia Morning

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness."

Lamentations 2:22-23

Click here to read the complete text.

Near the end of July, the Charlottes Rhodes Butterfly Park releases hundreds of Monarch butterflies. Children watching this are filled with excitement and wonder seeing these Monarchs launch into an awakening world. It's an awakening world pretty much like their own. The beauty of the fleeting butterfly and the innocence of the child.

In the real world there are sin-sick souls struggling with alcoholism, drugs sometimes resulting homelessness. The real world has faithful disciples coping with broken marriages, poverty, and addiction. These are wounded, barren, desert-like places.

Lamentations describes them this way:   

"Your wound is as deep as the sea.

 Who can heal you?"

Lamentations also declares God’s healing love and mercy as renewing sin-sick souls just as the morning sun faithfully rises. 

That's Michael's story. He came to church occasionally. Folks recognized that he was struggling with addiction issues and homelessness. One Sunday, for joys and concerns, he announced he was clean and sober. The folks praised him for this achievement. 

A few weeks later, he came to Tuesday's Bible Study with his head bloodied. He'd been assaulted at a shelter. “I can’t live this way no more,” he cried. “Nobody is supposed to live this way.” 

The Tuesday Bible Study group recognized this as a real-time Prodigal Son story. They surrounded him with prayer, love, and offers of support. 

After his assault, he returned to the place of hope in God’s steadfast, healing,  love. There, among the people of the class, he found God's love with mercies never ending. 

It is my firm conviction that in our wounded, barren, desert-like times, God's healing love touches us restoring our wounded souls.

God's Grace in Catastrophe

“My grace is sufficient for you,

for power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

Click here to read 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

My heart sank as I watched the condos in Surfside Florida collapse trapping and crushing residents. It was heart breaking to see the rescue workers valiantly searching through rubble trying to find survivors. The sight of the impromptu memorial wall is certainly one that weighs my spirit down.

What the tragic collapse makes very clear are the limits of human endeavor which show us our limitations and failures. We are reminded that in the overall scheme of things, we can feel small and powerless. 

And so, we pray. We pray for the first responders, for the grieving, for those awaiting answers. We pray for solutions so that similar disasters are avoided. 

Paul prayed three times that his "thorn in the flesh" would be removed. It wasn't. The Lords answer was, "My grace is sufficient for you." 

We may never understand all the implications of the Surfside Condo collapse, but "God's Grace is sufficient. God will come through for us, for the hurting, the mourning, the anxious, the searching. God will find a way to soothe souls trying to understand tragedy.

Of one thing I am certain, God’s amazing grace is present as people experience compassion in the catastrophe. God's grace is present as people express sympathy and caring concern.