Good morning…
As the sun sets on 2020, we see more clearly the single purpose for which we are born. With all of this year’s chaos and clashing, death and disconnection, unrest and uncertainty, our single purpose rests firmly in focus. Henri Nouwen said it well in a post from this week.
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Henri Nouwen DAILY MEDITATION | DECEMBER 29, 2020: Born to Reconcile
If you dare to believe that you are beloved before you are born, you may suddenly realize that your life is very, very special. You become conscious that you were sent here just for a short time, for twenty, forty, or eighty years, to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn’t matter. You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God’s chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they are also Beloved Sons and Daughters of God who belong together. You’re sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally. Before all distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on foundations of fear, there was a unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to the same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity.
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Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you (2 Corinthians 5:17-25, MSG).
Out of a unity in the mind and the heart of God, we are each sent into this world for a little while, twenty, forty, maybe eighty years. Over our lifetime we begin to realize that we, like every other human being on earth, are very, very special, belonging to the same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity. As the sun sets on 2020 before rising on 2021, let’s continue to invest wholeheartedly in our personal friendship with this reconciling God and in love invite all other to do the same.
God is already our Friend, eternity to eternity. How will we respond to this invitation into healing intimacy?
…Sue…
