Letting Go and Moving On

It is too easy in the Canadian church to get down on ourselves. We feel the decline. Our Sunday school rooms are not bursting, neither are the pews. Our budgets are getting tighter and tighter. And there is always a great temptation to think back to what the church was. But this is the church we have today. And it is still God’s church, God hasn’t forgotten us, not at all.

Instead of focussing on what we don’t have, think about what we do have: what gifts for serving; what places for mission; what resources and assets that we can release and tap into.

The psalm speaks to times that we know too well: dry places, hopeless places, prison places. But that is not the end of the story. God’s story never ends in death. God’s story is about life.

We can do the pity thing all day, 365 days of the year. It will get us nowhere. I’d rather name our worries, our disappointments, release them to God and hear again God’s promises to us and the whole people of God. God promises to bring us to new places, good places, spacious places.

We have to let go of what drags us down, to be open to where God is leading us.

Faithful One, break us from our despair to open us to new possibilities. Amen. — BM