Perhaps Needs to be Forgotten

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”  Genesis 22

While the last post talked about the passage of Hagar and Ishmael which has been tragically forgotten, this passage is all too frequently remembered.  It is remembered as an example of, "What kind of God would ever even let this story be told...not even saying that it might actually have happened??"  We see this as an illustration of the stereotype of God as violent or vengeful in the Hebrew Scriptures.  So, we keep coming around this passage like we do at a car accident.  We are at once repealed and yet we cannot help ourselves for gawking at this train-wreck. 

I have yet to find a real great commentary to help me get my heart around this narrative.  Some scholars say that it is "evidence that God does NOT want child sacrifice!"  I think God has a lot better ways of communicated that.  Other scholars say this is a passage that points out how difficult it is to hear our still speaking God, that Abraham just thought he heard God say this.  But that would also throw into question how reliable any of Abraham and God's conversations were.  Was Abraham supposed to leave his family?  Or change his name?  Or have a son with Sarah?  Like dominoes, sometimes our efforts in once place, set off a chain reaction in unintended ways.

So where does that leave us?  Does God want us to hurt or neglect our families?  I think there are far too many stories in Scripture that testify otherwise (the Prodigal Son comes to mind first).  Perhaps the best way I can hold this story right now is brokenness done in God's name that causes too much pain.  I know families who have essentially cut off their son or daughter for his/her sexual orientation.  I know families who shun each other with heavy grudges.  I know brokenness between siblings that is passed on to the next generation.  And I don't believe God asks for this, nor should church dogma and books of order.  

To be sure, when we were dealing with Noah, we talk about how God changes God's mind.  God initially thought the flood was a great way to solve a problem, only to realize the means led to another end.  Humans are beautiful and broken.  Maybe this is another moment of God changing God's mind.  

Most of all, this reminds me that I don't have God figured out.  God's ways are not my ways.  And I think we should be careful reducing stories down to moral nuggets.  We like to do this, treating Scripture as fairy tale.  For example, the message of the Three Little Pigs is choose your building and housing wisely.  Or maybe the message is that there are wolves in our midst.  Or maybe the message is that pigs are not the best contractors.  You see, even when you think you have found the message, there is always something more if you probe longer.  

We need stories like this to keep that truth front and center.  I need a story like this to make me uncomfortable...lest I get so complacent thinking that every story in Scripture has one, and only one, ethical application.  Scripture stories are vast and varied, they are deep and wide, and cover ground sometimes that is best left un-explored.  But there are moments of family brokenness.  Just as womanist theologians have re-claimed and re-interpreted Hagar, perhaps we need to hear from our sons and daughters who have felt sacrificed in the name of religion.  It is painful.  It will make us wince, but it is also a way for our still speaking God to get a word in edgewise.

May there be a trace of grace...even the smallest smidgen of grace...as we ponder this narrative for us today.

Blessings ~

Not Forgotten

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.  Genesis 21:8-19

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

Martin Luther once observed that the life of faith is holding in tension the agony and ecstasy. Faith is about holding together joy and pain; blessings and brokenness; or what I sometimes call the messy middle of life.  Most of the time, we tend toward one extreme.  We say we are a glass is half full, optimistic person.  Or we say that we are a realist who see that the glass is really half empty.  We are a party sunny or party cloudy kind of person.  This gets translated into our politics especially, we are supposedly either a Republican or Democrat, even as most of the country claim to be staunch independents...or in other words, in the messy middle.

Essentially we are holding together the both/and places in life.  Our last post was on laughter, this one could be on grief.  Right after the joy of welcoming a son...FINALLY...Sarah has moment of envy and jealousy.  She doesn't like seeing her son play with Ishmael, who was born to Hagar from Abraham.  And God plays marriage counselor by saying, "Do not be distressed, do what Sarah asks."  So, Abraham sends them away.  And Hagar is distraught...she sees no other option than to put Ishmael in some reeds and wander away, essentially abandoning her son.  It is a gut and heart-wrenching moment.

How many times have we been there...between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  We see no good options, back into a corner.  So, we surrender, we throw in the towel, and give up.  This passage is a moment of agony, right after the ecstasy of Isaac's birth.  

Yet, this passage, which is too often forgotten, is central and a foreshadowing of the life of the God's people.  First it is a wilderness moment.  In Exodus, we will hear all about God wandering with God's people for forty years.  In the Gospels, Jesus will go to the wilderness right after baptism.  But the FIRST person to do that, to experience the pain/desert/deserted place of a wilderness is Hagar and her son, Ishmael.  Before God's people knew exile, the father and mother of the three great mono-theistic religions sent someone into exile.  And not just any one.  Ishmael is the father of the Islamic religion.  This story will find echos in the story of Moses, whose mother is distraught by Pharaoh's genocide plan, that she will hide him in a basket among the reeds until Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses, and takes him to be raised right under the nose of the Pharaoh.  The taste in your mouth right now is irony!  But the first one to feel the hopelessness to the place of abandonment was Hagar.  Her story, Ishmael's story are truly central and tragically forgotten.

So, how do you really live between hope and despair or agony and ecstasy?  Because, let's face it, most of us anesthetize our pain with food or prescription medication or shopping.  I don't have some great answer to that modern day quandary.  It is a puzzle.  But I also think the church should do a better job helping us.  Rather than trying to play into the anesthetization of saying all God wants is our praise and not also our pain.  Or we talk about God's plan or will or whatever way we try justify that we simply do not know how to explain away the existence of pain.  So, maybe like Hagar, we should feel that pain.  Name it honestly and openly.  This will not work for everyone.  For some to feel that rawness is a vulnerability that will open to addiction.  For others, the pain will open a wound that has not had time to really heal.  Again, this is less about prescription and more about descriptions. 

Have you ever had a Hagar moment where you feel so distraught? 
Have you ever been between a rock and a hard place?
Did your faith help or hinder?

As you pray those honest questions, there is one final point about this narrative.  Our African-American sisters have seen this passage as vital for their faith.  One of the most powerful books I have read is Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores Williams which uses this passage as a lens for theological insight.  I commend this book to you for exploring more about our history as a country, slavery, and the importance of the Hagar story for Womanist theologians.  

May God grant us wisdom and peace in the living out of the difficult moments of life.  And may we like Hagar find more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~

Laughter

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” Genesis 21:1-7

Isaac means laughter, what a great name.  The one who before he was born awoken laughter from both his father, Abraham, and his mother, Sarah.  The one who you can imagine when he was born caused laughter to erupt as tears flowed down his mother's face.  Sarah is the saint of laughter.

Then, somewhere along the way, church became a very serious and somber business.  After all there are buildings to maintain and budgets to fund.  There are services to plan, sermons to preach.  Committee...O yes...the committees.  Always another meeting.  And rarely do we associate these moments with laughter.  But I think we should all go buy a portrait of Saint Sarah, place the photo in our board rooms, back rooms, and even bath rooms to remind us that laughter is the best prayer to God.

When did you laugh this week?  Honestly, this was not a week filled with laughter for me.  But, sometimes the lack of laughter has more to do with me than anyone else.  A pastor friend of mine was fond of quoting Lincoln, "Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be".  We often think that our happiness is dependent on forces outside our control.  While it is true that there is much brokenness in our world, there are forces that seem bent on spreading dis-ease in our world (cable news networks or radio hosts come to mind here).  It is easy to nit-pick your way through life, where nothing is quite good enough.  The sauce on your food, just a tad too spicy.  The day was too sunny or cloudy or too party cloudy.  Life is not about perfection, but finding peacefulness.  And no one can give us peacefulness.  You cannot purchase it along with a People Magazine and breath mints at your local store.  

My wife and I enjoy watching HGTV; and almost every show has the premise surrounding buying or renovating a home...perhaps the most stressful time in your life.  So, why NOT invite some cameras in for filming that moment in your life for national consumption?  So many shows also are bent on one person in the couple being overly grumpy about the house.  Then, in the end, we all want a happy ending, so both in the couples are suddenly so excited about the best decision ever.  On the one hand, that is just television.  On the other, people are trying to make up their minds to be happy.

We all know and admire people who seem to have an endless supply of happiness.  It seems to radiate from every pore of their being.  Of course, others help.  Watch a comedian; read funny stories or blogs; hang out with friends with a good sense of humor.  But at some point it needs to come from within too.  Touching the part of our soul connected to our funny bone that enjoys laughing so hard our bellies hurt.  

I pray you will continue to ponder prayerfully laughter and joy and happiness in your life.  Where is happiness coming from outside and inside?  And how are we thanking God for the saint of laughter, Sarah!  May the traces of God's grace tickle your life with laughter this week.

Blessings ~

Look Who is Coming for Dinner

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

Of all the stories in Scripture, this one is certainly in my top twenty.  I love the image of God coming to us in the form of a guest.  Think about that this 4th of July at the family reunion.  I love the image of Abraham racing all around like Martha Stewart over-caffeinated, getting everyone into a tizzy for this dinner.  I love that Sarah laughs.  What an honest and heartfelt prayer.  I love the icon above as one of the ways that brings this passage to life.  Three figures, draped in robes, feasting on a holy meal as an image of communion.  

What I don't particularly care for is Sarah feeling she has to deny her honest response.  And I don't like that Abraham gets to laugh (see the previous post on chapter 17) and does not get called on it by God.  I really wish Sarah would have said, "Um yeah, God, I did laugh.  It's been, like, ten years since we left our home.  We've been all over this You-forsaken desert always lured by a promise of a son.  Now...now you are asking me why I am laugh?  Because I have given up hope." 

Hope is one of those oft-used, rarely-understood words.  We get hopes confused with wishes all the time.  I wish I could go buy a new car...I hope for a world where none exclude.  I wish my children would listen so I would not have to yell...I hope for a world where our leaders listen.  I wish the media would quit interviewing Christians who preach hate/discrimination all in the name of the One who died on a cross...I hope my actions/blog/life can in some way suggest Christianity is about something else.  Wishes are wrapped up in the trinity of me, myself, and I; hope calls me out of myself.  Hope calls me to stop navel-gazing and start God's-realm-gazing.

Even with the above examples...I am not sure that really helps differentiate between hope and wishes.  But I think hope has to do with more than just my desires...hope has to do with God's desires.  God's deepest desires for a world where God's realm is not just a glimpse or a trace, but fully realized and shared by all God's people.  Hope has to do with me putting my wishes on hold for God's hopes; which is why we, as Americans, struggle with hope.  We get our wishes/desires confused with God's desires all the time.  It is easy to do...to conflate our desires and God's desires...let ours hold the trump card.  We need to wake up in the mornings, most of the mornings, and say what am I going to do today that makes no sense and makes me vulnerable for the sake of God's love/prayer/desire for this world?  That questions will take my morning prayer time to new places every time.

Which is why studying Scripture is so important and why it is important to be honest about the absurdity of faith.  I know why it is easier to go to Starbucks on Sunday or a soccer game, then I don't have to deal with God's faithful/loving demands for my life.  Scripture reminds me that God will show up at the most inconvenient times.  Not only when I least expect it, but also when I least want God hanging around.  Scripture shows us the surprising serendipity of God sense of humor.  And perhaps, God's final words to Sarah are not said laced with anger or judgment, but maybe a chuckle.  "Oh Sarah, knock it off, laughter is a prayer.  Own it and live it and pray it."

What in the world and in your life causes you to laugh?  So often faith becomes this somber and serious ritual where laughter rarely happens.  But I believe God laughs.  I believe God shows up for dinner unannounced, when we are least expecting it.  I pray this week you will sense traces of grace in moments of laughter and in meals where bread is broken.

May it be so for you and for me.

Blessings ~ 

A Perfect Way to Pray

God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!” God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.” And when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Genesis 17

This is the third and final post on Genesis 17.  And as the cliché goes, I think we did save the best for last.  I love this passage for two reasons.  First, I think this says something very profound about God's willingness to rename both Abram and Sarai.  For ten years, God's promise has revolved mainly around Abram, his ability to take leaps of faith and his willingness to trust in the midnight of his soul as the stars twinkled over his head.  And so it would make sense if the name change was only for Abram to Abraham.  But it is not.  Sarai to Sarah finally gets involved.  Maybe that is why finally in the next few chapters the promised son will finally arrive.  Changing names is important.  Our name offers insights into who we are and defines a part of our identity.  While Abraham means father of a great nation, Sarah means pure and happy.  What makes you happy in your faith right now?

Second, while usually we remember Sarah laughing, which we will examine in the next post, Abraham has his own funny bone tickled too.  And it is not just a polite chuckle that erupts uncontrolled from deep within.  Scripture says he fell on the ground.  I imagine the kind of laughter where your stomach hurts and you cannot breathe kind of laughter.

When was the last time you laughed like that?  Usually that happens with family or friends.  So maybe more importantly, when was the last time you laughed like that in church?  Most of us make faith out to be such a serious and somber event that we never laugh in church.  We wear these stern faces on Sunday mornings.  But we should laugh every time we come to the table.  Seriously this tiny piece of Wonder Bread and sip of juice is to communicate God's grace?  Get real. 

We should laugh hysterically every time we talk about God's unconditional love making all the difference in our life.  Seriously?  Love?  Have you not watched the news recently?  Any political or public leader who talked about love would be laughed right off the stage and not taken seriously.  It is all well and good to talk about love in church on Sunday.  But don't ask me to love my enemy, he will mock me on Monday morning.  Don't ask me to love unconditionally, it will make me look foolish.  Which is what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:10: "We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ."  Being able to hold that in tension is a key to faith.  People will rarely understanding Christians...what we do (like listen to sermons) and why we would give some of our hard earned money way.  The evidence for our foolishness is widely documented by those many others throughout history.  

We should laugh uncontrollably at church.  Seriously, are committees really the best way to do things?  No.  But it is an incarnational way of living life.  Does getting up early on Sunday and driving to church for community make sense?  No, we could find community at a more reasonable time and convenient location.

I do believe laughter is a prayer to God.  And we have our patron saints Sarah and Abraham to thank for that.

Today, may the traces of God's grace be found as you laugh...and may that be a prayer and a moment of God's presence for you.

blessings ~

All In

9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”  Genesis 17:9-14

Okay...circumcision is not exactly the easiest topic to discuss today.  First, it makes me squirm a little... okay a lot...just thinking about.  Second, I really have to question why showing Abram the stars and renaming him was not enough.  What exactly does cutting off flesh prove?

Well, perhaps circumcision shows you are all in...making a commitment.  And to be honest, commitment makes us squirm today.  I will give someone my email...but not my address.  It is easier to delete an email than to make awkward conversation on the phone.  And if you text me...even better. 

But part of faith needs skin in the game otherwise it feels like a theoretical and intellectual exercise.  And the Christian faith has always been about flesh...or incarnational...we worship God who puts flesh on in the form of Jesus our Christ.  God with flesh.  Of course that also means we need to re-examine our understanding of human flesh.  Over the course of Christianity, we have often regarded flesh as less than...especially in relationship to the spirit.

But why do we divide ourselves?  Our bodies are interconnected and interwoven.  Our souls are not separate from our flesh, the two are intimately and integrally twisted as one.  The two cannot be pulled apart; nor should we say one is good (soul) and the other bad (flesh)...both matter to God.  We experience the world through our bodies and our bodies were created by God.  God stirs our souls through music and prayer and conversations...all of which are incarnational too!

Of course, that really does not satisfactorily explain why God would ask for circumcision?  In Paul's letters he would eventually say, if it is meaningful to you, get circumcised. But if it is a stumbling block...then don't do it!  I think we need to help people think about rituals that connect to God and ones that distract from God.  And sometimes what is meaningful at one point or in one season of life will eventually become a rut where we are spinning our wheels.  This is a process, not a destination.  But then so is living life in this flesh.  Then so is living life with our spirits open.  

I invite you think...prayerfully ponder your understanding of circumcision.  Is there something that is still meaningful?  Is it a ritual that could be left behind?  And before you are quick to draw lines and claim one way is clearly better...perhaps there is a way that both can be true for us and for God.

May there be traces of God's grace for you as you ponder!

Blessings ~ 

Re-name

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”  Genesis 17:1-8

God has asked Abram to leave his home, soak in the starry night, and even wait...and wait...and wait.  Remember the 10 years from the last post?  So, here comes God again and Abram fell on his face.  To be sure, that could certainly be reverence...or maybe just pure exhaustion.  If I was Abram, I might wondering, "Good Lord, what now God?  Do I need to look at a cow jumping over the moon?  Or maybe a pretty cross stitch that tells me to trust?"  Abram does not even utter a word, just receives his new name.  He will now be Abraham.

And with my initial sarcastic response out of the way, I actually see something so powerful and prayerful and sometimes virtually impossible to do, at work in this passage.  Abram/Abraham has been waiting (and waiting).  He has trusted and even took matters into his own hands in chapter 16.  But God keeps coming to him...and in the passage above asks Abraham to RE-NAME and RE-FRAME the issue/situation of his life.

Often when we are mired in the messiness of life, we cannot see as clearly as we think.  When we are exhausted by waiting, our tired eyes and souls don't see as clearly as we think we do.  When change moves at a snails pace, even though our surroundings are practically standing still, we don't process as clearly as we think we do.  Instead, we keep returning to the same old tired explanations and responses day after day.  Our office environment is toxic and our co-worker has always bothered us, so when some project goes south obviously it is Bob's fault.  It was last time and will be next time.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results (can also be the definition of the church sometimes too unfortunately).  God calls us to constantly re-name and re-frame.  That does not necessarily mean we will change, but it does mean we will challenge our own perceptions, our own accountability, and our own responsibility for the brokenness that can happen in life.

We need opportunities for new names.  To be sure, a rose by another name is still sweet...perhaps by renaming we open ourselves to see/smell/hear/taste/experience something different in that flower; or more to the point: that person and that experience/event.  This, of course, is NOT easy.  It will challenge us and can even change us.  Once we hear that "Bob" from above is going through a divorce maybe our heart softens.  Or once we see that we were lax on our part of the project, we can see that we are not perfect either.  Or once we notice and rename that we are not always right and the smartest person in the room...that will make us re-think...re-name...re-frame what we are going through.

So, I encourage you to do that.

Where are you waiting for change?

Where are you mired in the messiness?

Where do you need to stop being in a rut, spinning your wheels?

Here is the thing about re-naming and re-framing...we NEED others to help.  This work is too hard to do alone.  Of course, that will mean being vulnerable.  The person we talk to might re-name the situation in a way we don't like, don't want to accept.  The person we talk to might shine a light on something we were hoping would remain hidden.  Or perhaps we'd rather stay stuck?

I pray that as you talk with others about places where we need to rename and re-frame, there will be more than a trace of God's grace for you and those around you.  

It certainly helped Abraham...eventually.

Blessings