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Thursday 2 November 2017

"Kindness... and Severity."

I ask for the grace to let go of the resentment I hold in my heart.  I ask for the grace to lower my expectations.  I ask for guidance as a person who seeks to be self-aware amidst people, some of whom are more self-aware than me and some of whom are much less self-aware, without judgment, even though their actions and my actions impact me and my community.  I ask for the wisdom to live out of justice, kindness, and humility, even when I am not feeling just, kind, or humble.


Romans 11:21-24
21For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. 22Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity towards those who have fallen, but God’s kindness towards you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.


1) "...kindness and severity of God;" "...provided you continue in his kindness;" "...a wild olive tree;" "how much more;" "natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree;" "kindness and severity;"


2) So... I don't imagine God up in heaven judging humanity severely.  But I do know the world to be both kind and severe.  Another "terrorist" attack in New York yesterday in which some 30 people were driven down by an ISIS devotee in a truck.  And, closer to home, wading through difficult relationships.  There is so much out there in social media about walking away from people who do us no good.  But we can't walk away from the entire planet.  I can't walk away from the 45th president of the US.  How do we end up embodying both the kindness and severity of God, if we are images and likenesses of God?  Especially when none of us gets to claim anything like moral high ground.  How do we reduce harm?


3) What is the invitation in all this?  To maybe sit with the severity of God a little, without judgement, just knowing that the world is both kind and severe.


"Holy One, help me to trust both your kindness and your severity."


Breathprayer: "Kindness... and severity."



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