They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. But in the time of their trouble they say, “Come and save us!” Jeremiah 2:27
Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4
REFLECTION:
I had to read the Jeremiah passage through a couple of times to get it.
The image is an interesting one…people turned away with their bodies, but still looking back with their faces. People who are in trouble, turned away from God, but still looking back and yelling “save us!”
It strikes me that this is a posture not unfamiliar to me, or to any of us. How easily we wander away, believing schedules must be kept, believing we know best, believing there’s just not enough time to do it all…
…and then we end up in trouble. It may be easier to merely turn just our heads and yell for help, but God calls us to “repent,” (a word that, at its most basic level, means “turn around”).
And why would we turn around and make the effort to begin heading in a different direction? The Romans reading answers that question. God’s kindness, forgiveness, wholeness, rest, love, and mercy. These things are meant to make us turn around, and head toward them rather than away from them.
Today, I am prayerfully considering the ways I have headed away from the sources of life I know God places before me. Have I kept an active prayer life? Have I spent time each day in scripture? Have I been challenged to live out my faith in messy human community? All of these things are sources of life toward which we are all called to turn.
May you have the courage to turn today…first, your head to ask for help, if that is the first step you need…but then, with your whole self. May we all turn toward the source of life, and mercy, and peace.
PRAYER:
God of infinite kindness, when we find ourselves unable to see in the darkness of trouble, teach us to turn to your life-giving light. There may we find clarity for the present and hope for the future. Amen.
(Prayer taken from the Moravian Daily Texts)
Common Grounding 