Sunday, April 25, 2021

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Katie Snipes Lancaster

Scripture: Jeremiah 30:22
“You shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Spiritual Practice: Making Promises/Covenant
The missed phone call, the coffee date that slipped your mind, the marriage that falls apart, the parent who never returns their kids call. We all fall apart in small or herculean ways.

God practices promise-making with us. From the beginning, God promises, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” We don’t always live up to our side of the bargain. And you’ll find places in scripture where the people of God claim that God too, hasn’t lived up to God’s side of the covenant (see Noah’s ark). But within the work of promise making and promise keeping, there is the practice of forgiveness. No broken promise is too large for God’s forgiveness. Stan Mast says when we clothe ourselves in God’s love and compassion, we find that our wallet is full of forgiveness. That makes the practice of promise-making that much less intimidating.

What promise do you make to those you love? What promises have you broken? How have you sought repair? What do you need now, so that you can live a life of promise and hope?

Daily Prayer
God of this day and the next,
You promise that you will be with us,
And in doing so, we are strengthened to live our lives in community with one another.
Commit to us again, O Ancient of Days.
Commit to us, so that we might commit to one another.
Forgive us, so that we might forgive one another.
Live your love within us, so that we might live your love in the world.
Amen.