We had included this reflection in a monthly newsletter to our staff but wanted to make it available to friends of Word Made Flesh as well. Thank you for partnering with WMF and being a part of God’s work to bring healing, hope, and peace to our neighbors in need around the world.
by Clint Baldwin, Executive Director
I was blessed to be able to teach a course intensive for Asbury University to Salvation Army Corps folk this last January in New York. On the last day of the week, I was asked to offer morning devotions for the whole group of multiple course sections, professors and various Salvation Army personnel. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of my students recorded the short devotion. I found this out later when my student kindly uploaded it to my FB profile. In watching it, I thought it might also be a meaningful reflection for us as a WMF community.
The short reflection I offered in some senses has two primary orientations. One, it emphasizes God’s great Love for us. Two, it presents that God’s Love is always greater, broader, deeper than we imagine. I sought to relay the second emphasis through offering a few examples from Scripture that showcase God always makes room for those outside other normed processes of acceptance. In fact, not only does God always “make room” per se, but at times the Biblical narrative shows that God honored these alternative models/methods/pathways above traditionally normed processes. In missiological parlance, forms may have varied, but God saw through it to similarity of meaning.
As WMF, as we all approach and engage intercultural contexts, we lean into varied situations with keen awareness of our Lifestyle Celebrations (such as humility, community, submission, service…) and our eyes and hearts wide-open to see how God might be present and at work in ways that we have yet to fully discern and ready to celebrate God’s Goodness where it might be found.
Toward the very end of the devotion, I share an long-told story about a rabbi being asked by his students how a person can tell the difference between when the night ends and the day begins. That story alone might well make listening to the devotion worth your time.
Overall, I hope the reflection is encouraging to you this month.
(the video flips about 10 seconds in and then stays the same the rest of the way. Special note (word to the wise): you’ll think the videoing technique is cooler if you consider it an edgy, indie-oriented, documentary style.
You can find a link to the devotion by clicking here.