(xaris and shalom)

We live in the time of the fullness of the revelation of God. Although we are utterly undeserving of the least scrap of His grace, unworthy of even the common mercies upon which our continued existence constantly depends, meriting only His outpoured wrath -- The eternal, infinite, righteous, holy God calls us near. Calls us children. Calls us beloved. And knowing that it is utterly impossible for us to cross the chasm that we created, that cut us off from Him, God made a way for us. Old Testament believers also lived in the grace of God, yet He did not grant to them to see the outcome of their faith, choosing instead to provide something better for us. We live in the age of the in-between, bearing witness to the coming of Christ which was foreshadowed by all of the signs and sacrifices under the old covenant. At the same time we, like the saints who came before, are called to live by faith; to acknowledge that we are strangers and aliens in this world, pilgrims on a long road who press

It's been thirteen years since 9/11, and four or five since I asked people to write their memories of that day for a project that I was doing in college.  I had been struck by what a vivid and vulnerable topic it remained to so many other students; the event that first caused us to really be aware of the world. Many people wrote on similar themes: where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news; how hard it was to believe it, to reconcile what was happening with what we believed about America; how life changed in the days after yet remained oddly normal; how they saw God's hand at work.  And through it all, grief and hope.  Many said that they had never written about it before, which didn't surprise me -- it came up in conversations often in college, but it was almost taboo. It was a memory that still hurt.  But many who wrote also expressed the importance of remembering and seemed glad to have a way to talk about what had happened and to reflect on

Maybe it's sufficient to say that lately, I've been musing on the subtle dangers of thinking that only the things that are self-evident are truths.  My reason is fallen, twisted.  The tracks that my thoughts run on are warped, crooked, still built on sometimes treacherous ground.  My emotions, too, are not reliable; things that seem sure at one time look obviously foolish later on. Lately, contentment (or the lack thereof) has been a commonly recurring subject in conversations, in sermons, in books.  How quickly we are swayed from looking to Christ, from seeing the goodness of God in all of life, and how prone we are to focusing on ourselves.  We comfort ourselves with things that sound like truth but are clever lies.  "I can be thankful because [fill in the blank with whatever 'worse thing'] has not happened." No. That is not why I can be thankful. I can be thankful, can be content, in any  circumstance, because God is good.  Not because something worse hasn&