The Texas Rangers are in first place at the All Star break, with a one-and-a-half game lead over the M’s. I did not have that on my bingo card a month ago. With Cory Seager out, Evan Carter hitting below his weight, and half their starters catching rides to the games on buses from Frisco and Round Rock, this team is a contender! I’m not sure it’s enough to compel Ray Davis to open up his checkbook in the next couple of weeks. But there’s hope. Especially in the putrid American League this year. There’s hope.

“To this end we labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in us.” ~Colossians 1:29

There’s an old story about a shoe company that sent two representatives to a third-world country. After three days, the first rep phoned his boss and said, “Nobody here wears shoes! There’s no potential here!” The second rep phoned his boss and exclaimed, “Nobody here wears shoes! There’s unlimited potential for an outstanding market here!”

We can’t escape the really tough stuff in our world; it’s always right in front of us. The politics, the race issues, and a thousand other things that seem to divide us; drawing lines and choosing sides, poverty and injustice, violence and godlessness–it’s everywhere. If we’re not careful, we can give up on the ideas of reconciliation and connection, of healing and redeeming. We can just want to hunker down and play it safe, for our own sakes. Don’t risk it. It’s never going to change. It’s not worth it. It’s always going to be this way now. The status is always going to be quo.

No. Wrong answer.

Children of God and followers of Jesus who are sent by God’s Holy Spirit on his mission never take that position. The new creation energy of our God is working in us and through us. His mighty strength is empowering his salvation mission for Midland and for the whole world. God’s energy, God’s power, and God’s will to bring all people together in him means the status is not quo.

God’s energy working so powerfully within us means wonders have not ceased, possibilities we never dreamed of are bound to happen, and hope is a for-real legitimate position for us to take.

The same God of your Bible, the same mighty Creator and powerful deliverer, is still at work right now today. The God who created breath is still giving breath today; the God who liberated people then is still liberating people today.

We have nothing to fear. We know that God is with us in Christ, that he will deliver us in Christ, and that he really is saving the world through Christ. There’s unlimited potential for new creation in you and in your community. And you and I are so unbelievably blessed and privileged to be in the middle of it with him. And with one another.

Peace,
Allan