Your Name Is Not Disaster

Stuff happens. Towers collapse. Relationships end. Pain comes.[[p] We know this.

But when it happens to us, we suddenly ask all kinds of questions: Why me? Why this? Why now? Why?

Jesus’ word “repent” is not meant to scare us or to warn us to get our act together in order to avoid Stuff Happening.

At the same time, it doesn’t really answer our questions.

But what it does do is remind us that God goes with us, that we are not alone, that we can turn toward God at any time and in any place.

And it also reminds us that the Stuff that Happens does not define us; it does not tell us who we are.

God’s love does that.

Your name is Beloved. And we can turn toward that any time and all the time.

Gracious God, to turn toward you is to live. Help us turn. Amen. — RAP