“When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Matthew 21:1 – 9

“Grace is difficult to believe and difficult to accept. We want so desperately to believe that God loves us unconditionally, yet we keep adding conditions. “Okay, fine,” we say reluctantly, “but once we accept God’s grace, we’d better get our act together. We had better be successful or we won’t be worthy of His grace.” We just cannot believe God can grace even our “failures.” (Michael Yaconelli. Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith, p. 145 Kindle Edition.)

It is easy to see G-d in the extraordinary, in the sacred, and in the beauty of the earth. It is not so easy to see G-d in the ordinary, the everyday, the dull, the dim, the dank – and especially in our failures. Yet, if we proclaim that G-d is in all things, then we should see G-d in ALL things.

I look at 2020 and I tend to focus on the virus, the election, and the ways I did not live up to my potential. I hear this voice in my head saying “…it just has not been a great year.” And yet I feel blessed that I have a new call, a new congregation, and new people to learn about and to love. So many things have been happening in my life that some days it feels like a tsunami of feelings, emotions and fears. Yet G-d has been ever present – alive and in charge of so many of my decisions that G-d has truly given me hope and promise and sustenance through all my tribulations and my successes.

Just because we are having a bad spell in our lives does not mean that Christ has abandoned us. What I have learned is, if I feel as if G-d has forgotten about me, then I need to pay more attention to G-d. The truth of the Christian faith is this: G-d does not abandon us, we just need to see that Christ is still active in the midst of the bad, and in the presence of the good, and in the mix of the mundane. Christ is always there, we just need to find ways to keep our eyes on the prize, and to see how G-d is in all things.

Pastor Dave