The Days Are Coming… Expecting Something Quite Different 

“…the joy that we feel before our God because of you…”  -  I Thessalonians 3:9b

To exemplify my commitment to children, I purchased a number of ties with “kid” things on them.  I wore them most every day.  They caused me to remember my commitment and they started innumerable conversations. 

I like life and I like my life.  But I am troubled by how much I have “bought in” to an  unGodlike culture.  I need a new set of ties to aid in remembering my commitment, starting conversations and giving Apostle Paul the “joy” the Thessalonians did, because of the Jesus way they lived.

What might those “ties” be?

I am committed to expect something quite different from myself / my world, and to again be vocal about it.  I have in mind fundamental matters now under siege or nearly vanished – truth telling, steadfast love, commitment to life together. 

Specifically, and in order to prod you to develop your list, I declare:

• If we are going to persist in electing leaders who have a single purpose to reduce funds for the common wealth, then it is necessary as Christians voting for such that we increase giving for the care of Jesus’s “the least of these” by the saved amount.
  
  
• If we are going to persist in praying God will heal our every hurt and reward our every effort and bless our nation every time, then it is necessary that we spend half our prayer time in confession.
  
  
• If we are going to persist in excluding from full participation people whose lives, lifestyles, age, race, culture, orientation are not pleasing to us, then it is necessary  that we strike the word “whosoever” from John 3:16 and replace it with a list of our creating.
  
  
• If we are going to persist in racist actions, then it is necessary as Christians that we stop singing “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”

Every Advent the Bible presses me to expect something quite different from myself and for our world.  On first thought “The Coming Days” are disturbing, on second, quite exhilarating, don’t you think?