Resolve to Live

Romans 8:18-25

It's the New Year. The worst time of the year to step on the scale. We've battled Christmas cookies, pies, and candies. We made plans at Thanksgiving to not eat so much, but then the "much" was presented before our slobbering faces and we gave in to the "so" what and it was so good.

But just as we stood before that Jezebel of a sugar cookie shaped like a candy cane and wrestled with the wrapping of an actual candy cane, we now stand with trepidation and dreadful foreknowledge of the truth posing as a scale.

       And such is life. The ongoing reality check if I am where I want to be and do I dare stick my courage to the sticking place and embrace the truth and the opportunity.

       Paul, in his brilliant letter to the Romans, expresses this struggle between embracing the truth of who we are and trading it for the truth of who we can be. He writes of recognizing the struggle of the day and living with hope of what God is doing. He says, "creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;... that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

       These words speak to the promise we have in Christ that today is only the beginning of our transformation, but in order to be transformed into the new, we must let go of the old. It is standing before a scale and not seeing the result as a curse or even a shaming, but an opportunity to live differently and be set free from the things that hold us back from life.

       In the Celtic Daily Prayer book there is a poem by  Joel McKerrow

"As the tamed horse

Still hears the call of her wild brothers

And as the farmed goose flat hopeful wings 

As his sisters fly overhead,

So too, perhaps,

The wild ones amongst us 

Are our only hope in calling us back

To our true nature.

Wild ones

Who have not been turned to stone

By the far reaching grasp of the empire

And its program of consumer sedation,

The killing of imagination.

Where, my friends,

Have the wild ones gone?"

Our hearts pound with a primal beat that longs to be in sync with our creator. The truth, the scale of our life, is that we have fallen out of beat. The opportunity is before us to find ourselves in rhythm with creations song. 

Begin this year anew, with full hope and opportunity to live in time with Jesus. Listen for the call of the wild untamed love of God. Live in hope.

Romans 12:24 For in hope we were saved.

Peace and Blessings,

Pastor Cory Britt