From Pastor Al…

  In a book entitled Tokens of Trust, The Archbishop of Canterbury writes about seeing God at work in the world. Archbishop Rowan Williams writes: God is always at work, but that work is not always visible. God is always at work.  Sometimes the world’s ways of working go with the grain of his purpose and sometimes it resists.  But if certain things come together in the world at this or that moment, the ‘flow’ would be easier and more direct. Perhaps a really intense prayer or a really holy life can open the world up that bit more to God’s purpose so that unexpected things happen. As I read what the Archbishop wrote, I could not help but think that he formulated his thoughts on the theme God at work based on his life’s reflections, especially in ministry.  It is also fair to say that his sense of God at work in the world is something he was able to write about only after taking time to know himself in the practice of “intense prayer” where he found himself in the deeper “holy life” that he suggests.  I suspect that some, if not many, of you have spent the past few weeks of our slower paced Florida summer thinking about and remembering God at work in your life.  I know that the older I get, the more I appreciate the prayerful, the reminiscent, and the more intentional “holy life” times that become available to appreciate God at work.  Summers are a gift.  Summers are a blessing that do pace us down so that we do take time to smell the roses and thereby know the creative magnificence of God at work.  As we look to the days ahead, driving off the “at work” blessings of God in and around us – “Rally Day” is fast approaching – let us not sell short the importance of the “intense prayer” that Archbishop Williams writes about.  Prayer is simply more important than anything.  He summed up his thoughts on this saying, “We are called to pray, to trust, and to live with integrity before God (to live ‘holy lives’) in such a way as to leave the door open, to let things come together so that love can come through.”  And is that not what we are purposed to be as the church, the Heart of Merritt Island?   We are called to be blessings to each other and to our neighbors, projecting the expression of God’s love into the world.  Because, when it is all said and done, it might be just that simple and just that difficult: prayer, trust, good living, and expressing God’s love.  These things, together with God’s grace are what will takes us into the future.   Blessings to you! 

 

 

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