We Hold the Keys to a United Future

I pray this finds you well and squarely within the grace of the Lord Jesus, because he is just the kind of lord that gives grace. He is a lord that does not lord. He is a lover. He is a God that does not demand obeisance but rather earns affection. He is humble by nature, not by exception. He is love and does not require you to do anything before he gives it. He doesn't even require your love in response to his love. There is no manipulation in him. There is so much energy and life and heat and do-overs flowing from him, there is no way you could use it up.

And we. We are his beloved. We are not a random evolutionary event happening on a lifeless rock floating through emotionally-detached space. No, this planet is alive. The universe is alive. And we are connected to all of it. We are the children of all of it being connected. We are the tip of the flame of a universe on fire. How do I know? Because I feel the heat in these words and they must be coming from somewhere beyond the cold emptiness of space.

We are the manifestation of all the desires of divinity. We are the crown jewel on the big bang. We are the apple of God's eye. We are what he's been waiting for and desiring since the beginning, like an expectant mother awaiting her coming child. We are center-stage in a drama of universe-wide proportions and deep, deep significance. It all matters. All of it. You matter. Deeply. To all who came before you and to all who will come after, but most importantly to the ones around you now. Every one of them is a gift from the universe—from God himself—as a gift to you...to discover, to enjoy, to love, to give to and receive from. You are they. They are you. We are one. 

Everything is a gift. Everything has a place. Everything we see, and touch, and smell, and taste is saturated with significance. It is all so connected. Help us, Lord, to count it all and make it all count.

Every day, every loss, every death, every tear. They are all counted. And they all add up to something good—every smile, every hug, every heartache. God, give us eyes to see it all through your eyes. Be the anchor in the storm, the arc of the universe bent toward justice, the angel in disguise to strengthen us on our journey, the end that makes it all worth it while we are still here in the middle.

This year has tested and tried us, blessed and united us, tempted to untie us. Here we are at this moment in history, living our nothing's-new-under-the-sun lives that have been done a trillion times before, yet somehow still unique, fresh, and filled with infinite potential. We are stepping into something new—something the world has yet to see fully realized: all of us in unity. 

We push into this next moment that's never before existed—that no one else on planet earth has ever lived—moving into it one second at a time, together, in lockstep,...not with clubs raised toward each other, but with craftsmanship to design and build a future of beauty and prosperity. Why would we waste time on hatred when so much wonder and goodness and abundance awaits? Yet that future waits for us to embrace each other. "We" is the only thing that can complete "Us" and fulfill God's ultimate desire of oneness. E. Pluribus Unum. 

We will never be truly "we" without total inclusion, never be truly free without open-ended and un-ending diversity. God, unite us again. Help us break our addictions to self-justification. Help us to wake up again and love. Help us to risk, to be vulnerable to one another, to ask for help, and to not spend our passions on bitterness-driven division or the other side of it's tarnished denarius: superiority. 

Leave those coins to Caesar; give to God what is God's.