Wednesday, October 31

Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 108 & 111; Proverbs 21:30-22:6; Luke 21:20-28; Romans 9:19-27

The piece of Scripture that most spoke to me is just slightly outside the bounds of today’s assigned readings. You see when you read Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation, often he doesn’t number individual verses; instead, he numbers a paragraph. The paragraph that started with verse 20 didn’t end with verse 27 – it went on to verse 33. Because of this I encountered verse 32 that really spoke to me. Verse 32 in The Message reads: “They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their ‘God projects’ that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into [God] and went sprawling.” This reminded me of one of the challenges our local churches face. We can become so caught up in our own programs that we totally lose sight of our call to serve the larger community. This oversight often shows up in a lack of commitment or apathy toward missions. Today’s scripture is a challenge to not get so caught up in our own stuff that we lose sight of what’s really important: God’s stuff! Today I invite you to examine your own life and see if there are places where you’ve become so swept up with your stuff (no matter how good and noble it might seem) that you’re missing God’s call. Til next time…