Sustaining, Transforming Love

Dear Friends in Valhalla Parish—

Earlier on Thursday I had a conversation with someone that left me welling up with tears. Not tears of sadness or tears of joy, but the kind of tears that come when you experience deep resonance with someone's experience. The kind of experience where you sense God's presence.

To me, the tears came out of nowhere, and it took me some time to figure out what they were about. We were still in the midst of the conversation (all on Zoom, by the way) when I paused and told my conversation partner about my reaction. 

I wanted him to know that what he said resonated deeply, and that it brought me to tears. What I felt deep within was a longing for the kind of world that he was talking about. 

We had spend the better part of half an hour talking about our experience of Synod. At a certain point, the conversation shifted to our sense of where the church was going. And what did he do? He spoke about hope, and possibility, and the overwhelming sense that God is with us in the midst of all that we are facing.

He spoke with vision about the opportunities we have as a church to share the good news that is within us with our neighbours. And he spoke of the ways in which he and other members of his congregation were learning to put their experiences of faith into words, many for the first time. As he spoke, my heart sang. And so I told him. I told him that I felt, in that moment, that God was speaking to me, through him. 

Did he know that he was doing that? Not really. But sometimes God works in mysterious ways. 

On Sunday, in response to a question I asked during the sermon at St. David's, two members of that congregation opened up about their experiences of Jesus. They shared stories of prayer and intimacy with God, of a sense of God's presence—even in the midst of trying circumstances. 

Whenever I hear someone share a story of their sense of God's presence, of God's guidance, of God's nearness, I find myself getting overwhelmed. These stories bring my sense of God's presence so much nearer.

How often do we think or speak of God's action as being past tense? Each week we reflect on scriptures that bear witness to God's help in ages past. Yet how often do we connect this to our hope for years to come? 

And yet God's faithfulness is not just "once upon a time." God isn't confined to the past tense. God is present. God is at work. God still speaks today.

These days I'm trying to listen better. These days I'm trying to be less impatient as I wait for God. These days I'm seeking to cultivate practices that allow me to put aside the distractions of the day to listen for God's subtle whisper. 

Throughout the scriptures, before God's faithful people get on the road, they listen. Before they take action, they wait on the Lord. It can be tempting to try to fix our problems on our own. It can be tempting to work harder and faster to bring on the results we want to see. All this makes it more difficult to wait patiently on the Lord who hears our every cry. This is as important for us as individuals as it is for God's church—as it is for our local congregations in New Denver and Castlegar. 

As we enter into summer, what would it look like if we rekindled the expectation that God is present in this moment, too. 

And so, may we continue to open ourselves to the God who still speaks; the one who calls us to depend wholly on the Creator of all things; the one who calls us to be beacons of divine love for a heartbroken world. Perhaps this prayer might be one we can share in the days ahead:

O God,
where are you leading us 
and where would you have us go? 

As we wait patiently for you, 
open our eyes to see the world as you see it. 
As we listen for your voice, 
open our ears that we might hear the cries of your people.

Renew in us a sense of your presence,
Awaken in us an experience of your abiding love

That we might respond to your world
and the cries of your people
knowing that you go
before us,
behind us, 
ever with us—
to experience, to embody, and to proclaim
your sustaining, transforming love. 

Amen.

Every Blessing, 

Andrew Stephens-Rennie
Valhalla Parish Missioner