Dear Friends,
My promised post about the practices I take to restore my soul will come, but I have decided to hijack my own blog and squeeze this one in ahead.
Seven years ago college football history was made in one of the most stunning games every played. The Boise State University Broncos came head-to-head with the University of Oklahoma Sooners in the 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. On paper the games should have ended with a lopsided pounding of the Broncos by the Sooners. What happened was something totally different. To this day, as a Boise State fan, I can watch the game and feel the intensity, the rise of emotions, the sense of victory slipping away and the ecstatic excitement from and unbelievable victory. When I watch the game today I watch it with a different feeling than I did when I saw the plays unfold live. I know how the game is going to end. The seemingly game ending interception in the closing minutes of the game really isn’t the end of the game. I know how it is really going to end. Boise State is going to win and Ian Johnson will propose to his cheerleader girlfriend on national TV.
As Christians, our life in this world can feel like the impossible football game. We may experience victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, good and evil. It can be easy to feel as though evil has driven the final nail into the coffin of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus said, in Matthew 13, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed” and “the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast.” What power could tiny seeds and microscopic fungus have against all the powers of this world? In them are all the creative and redemptive power found God himself. In them is the power of Satan’s defeat. In them is hope, justice, mercy, joy, and love. In them is the good news of the Gospel.
As Christians we go through life differently than others. We can go through life with an impenetrable optimism, because we know how the game is going to end. Whatever happens, as Christians let us “Keep Calm and Kingdom On” let us never forget we know how this game will end and never lose our eternal optimism for the Kingdom of God until, as the song says, “earth and heaven are one.”
The graphic you see at the top of this post is one that I created to go along with a sermon series I a preaching at my church. This November I will be going with a team from my church on a mission trip to Guatemala. I am selling shirts with the slogan on it to help raise money for my trip. Click the picture below to go to a page to find out more information and to order a shirt.
Of course, you don’t have to buy a shirt to help me on my trip. If you want to help, you may send a check to the church (Hope Wesleyan Church, 857 N Farnham St, Galesburg, IL 61401) made out to the church with “Guatemala” in the memo line.
Thank you everyone for your prayers and support and for indulging me on this post.
Blessings,
Pastor Stephen