When it feels like the world that we know is crumbling around us as something new but indistinct is emerging, we can breathe into the discomfort because we know that we are deeply loved.

Vulnerability is not a bad thing; it’s a human thing, even a God-like thing. Each of us is a mix of giftedness and brokenness. The more deeply I come home to that reality, the more genuine I can be, trusting God and others to love me in my brokenness and sin. And I can love people as people, not seeing some of them as “the oppressed,” but as one with me in the great human community, the beautiful, broken body of Christ.

We’re standing together in community, members and leaders. I continue to hold the image of Moses and Aaron and Hur in the forefront of my mind. They’re a team, holding the staff and keeping it steady till sunset, on mission together, serving the community.

Being thankful helps me to notice all the ways that God is loving me, moment by moment. It helps me to notice the good in other people too, moving me away from judgement toward love, compassion, and acceptance.

I am little, but God is big, so it’s enough to have just a tiny grain of faith. I offer what I can, and God grows it.

Older people need the young to dispel complacency with their raw passion and energy, and the young need the tempered passion, wisdom, and support of older people. God calls each of us to act for the sake of the kingdom of God, and when our action moves us together, well, it’s a glimmer of what the kingdom of God looks like.

When I know I can trust someone with little things, I can trust them with the big ones, too.

Human beings are complicated in this. We sometimes need discernment and healthy boundaries and self-protection when relationships break down. However, God, who is infinite mystery, is not complicated in this. God wants us to return no matter what. God loves us whether we’re bratty or whiny, lost, searching, wayward, or unfaithful. When we are lost and return to God, God rejoices.

Even if I’m afraid before I ride a roller coaster (and probably during too), I’m always excited that I did it when it’s over. It was worth it. That’s true of discipleship too. As I choose a life in Christ day by day, moment by moment, I enjoy the ride. Wild though it may be, it’s worth it.

Ironically, entering through the narrow gate may mean loving other people in expansive, generous ways. Maybe we enter through the narrow gate when we open wide the tents of our hearts.

So, let’s be daring. Let’s catch the spark of Jesus’ yearning to break open counterfeit peace in order to do the disruptive work of genuine peacemaking. Some division is necessary as we figure out how to bring about the Peace of God. We will likely be uncomfortable, and that’s okay. Jesus was probably uncomfortable most of the time.

That’s what my faith in things unseen hopes for now: that the God who made a childless old man the father of a nation can help us to turn the U.S. into a peaceful and just nation, a safe place for everyone.

Where some find scarcity, Jesus, in the context of community, offers abundance. Everyone has enough and more than enough to eat. Not only that, but the community experiences this unitive, meaningful miracle together. People not only have their physical needs met, but they have their need for belonging met as well.

Hindsight is like a sore muscle. It shows me how affliction has helped me to grow and how it has brought me closer to God. It’s not the easy times that have formed me; it’s growing through suffering that has made me into the person I am. And if God worked through hard times before, God will certainly do so again.

We are the Church of the Spirit, the Church that calls ourselves to spiritual adulting, where discipleship means discerning the movement of the Spirit and responding to it.

Maybe the point of this feast is mission. Jesus sends his followers to be witnesses – in their own backyards and throughout the whole world – and he promises to send them the Spirit. His parting is not really a goodbye but rather an invitation to something new.   

My default may be anxiety, but the deeper I go in the spiritual life, the more I see how God is at work in me, changing my default settings. God helps me to work against fear and despair to come to the peace of Christ.

God doesn’t just choose to be with us from afar, but intimately with each of us at every moment, with every breath, with every blink of the eye. With every joy and sadness, God is there.