Reconciliation

I was praying this week--really feeling crappy about all the bad in the world (note previous post)...when I felt God say to me, "I am reconciling all things."

So, maybe I'm not very good at my New Year's resolution of expecting good. But I think God's on board and that was my accountability.

It is way too easy for me to become wrapped up in the negative. I live my life surrounded by messages to expect evil. At work, I spend hours completing paperwork and consent forms with parents, children, and volunteers--just waiting for something bad to happen. I still need to re-new my auto insurance...because most likely something bad will happen. Movies, books, friends' advice all point to this mode of self-preservation with the expectation that all things will work for the bad of those who do not take proper precaution.

There's danger when the fear starts to creep into my concept of God and His goodness. My prayers start to look like an insurance contract or a confidentiality statement--where my focus is on the negative that I'm waiting for, rather than the positive that has already come. It's like God said to me, He's reconciling...not destroying...all things.

Colossians 1:15-20 says of Jesus, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. "

A friend of mine once said that John Wesley (largely credited for starting the Methodist movement) described HOPE as an essential spiritual discipline. A spiritual discipline being something you commit to daily in order to further your connection to God. So every day I spend time reading the scripture, praying for wisdom, connecting with my spiritual community...

And hoping?

What an incredible challenge? To view the re-newing of my mind to expect good as a discipline. Every day can I re-center my perception of personal struggles, the pain of loved ones, and social injustices to a view of a God who is and has reconciled all things "whether things on earth of things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."