Subtitled: “Why potty training may be more difficult with Sophie.”
Author: Wick
Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, Writer, Poet, Friend, reader, coffee enthusiast, hockey Wing-Nut, musical participator, etc...
"today" people
I was reminded yesterday of a very important aspect in who we are as Kingdom people. People who are living in the life we’ve been set free to live because of what God has been/is doing/will do in Jesus Christ. I will try and summarize it horribly. 🙂
We are called to forgive, which is, in a sense, letting go of the past. We are called to release from owing anything to us, those who have offended or wronged us in any way. The Spirit of Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us and released us, steps in where this can be difficult for us….giving life to our forgiveness.
We are also called to not worry about tomorrow. “Each day has enough troubles of it’s own”. The day of the Lord comes “like a thief in the night”. Everything we read is about being ready, but not being ready for someday way down the road that we’ll try and figure out when exactly it’s arriving. We are called to be ready…TODAY.
Which brings us to today. “Give us THIS DAY our daily bread.” We pray for God to give us what we need for today. We live, today. As followers of Christ, we are not bound by hurt or revenge from the past, nor are we anxious for the future. We exist in today. God transforms in today. God offers newness today. TODAY is a gift.
When we recognize TODAY as the gift that it is, it allows us to LIVE TODAY differently than the world around us. The world that is begging to be set free from the chains of yesterdays. The world that is curled up in a ball in the corner about what might come tomorrow. We stand in the midst and yell “TODAY!”, giving thanks to a God who is making all things new as we yell.
At the same time, we are a people with an amazing history and covenant story between God and His people who have been and are being used to reach all of creation with His good news.
We are also a people with a future, called to live and embody the hope of a tomorrow where God has gone ahead of us. We are to be responsible, and care for what is to come.
But we live TODAY as people with healthy relationships to the past, present, and future….in the context of Jesus Christ. May we breathe slowly today….living within it’s rhythms and measures each minute we’re given….
μετάνοια & ἄφεσις
Definition:
1. a change of mind, as it appears to one who repents,
of a purpose he has formed or of something he has done
“Metanoeite: change your tune, adjust your tuning, change your mind and heart, transform your whole disposition, your “Stimmung”, your moodedness, your whole way of being in the world and being with one another. Immerse (baptezein) your old heart, your old mind, and wash away the meanness that is centered solely on itself so that you can be transformed.”
How does this flow into this thing called forgiveness? Once an offender turns towards the offended in a new way, having turned from themselves and towards the other….
“..in forgiveness…I must give up the power, forgo repayment, or give away (fort-geben) the advantage I have over you. I wipe the ledger clean so that the offense is gone, actively wiped away, wiped out, and you are released. But…the wonder here, the amazing grace, is not annihilation, for what is in the past is still there, but re-formation or transformation, where the offense is transformed into a moment of forgiveness into something that is no longer hanging over us, no longer between us, not anymore.
The eventful character of the forgiven past is that the past is not simply retained or sustained or simply wiped away – nothing is simple – but retained AS wiped away…..the past is neither annihilated nor forgotten, but it is given a new meaning, the meaning of the “as if it never happened,” which presupposes that it did, which constitutes the temporality of forgiveness as an event.” Caputo
words from wick 