Faithful in Babylon | Ordinary, Habitual Faithfulness

Hey friends, again, we haven't met.

I'm Josh, the joy of being serving as a pastor here at the

Garden and I'm glad to be together today.

What a delightful sunny day out there.

As you have already heard, there is a volunteer opportunity for

you. There's a lunch happening after

that volunteer opportunity if you want to hang out further and

enjoy some of the sunshine. Come, come chill with us after

the gathering today. We love to love to kick it.

And this morning we are in Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

We're going to be wrapping up our series through the book of

Daniel titled Faithful in Babylon that we've been trekking

through over these last five weeks.

And this morning we finally arrive at what is definitely the

most famous story in this book, one of the most famous stories

in all of the Hebrew Bible, story of Daniel and the lion's

den. And I hope to convince you this

morning in the next 20-30 minutes or so that this is not

mostly a story about the lions, although lions are cool.

You know, my daughter enjoys the Franklin Park Zoo.

Lions are rat. It's also not really a story

about, like, Daniel being courageous, although certainly

Daniel in this story is courageous.

But I think this story actually points us to something that's

relevant for each one of us today, and that is that.

That this is a story about how small, faithful, resolute acts

can really shake the foundations even of an empire.

Over the last couple of months in my neighborhood of

Dorchester, where I live, I've started to see something that I

didn't see before. It's an unwelcome sight

candidly. And that is that as I'm walking

my daughter to school or driving around the neighborhood now,

it's not unusual for me to see ICE vehicles.

Sometimes they say departmental Homeland Security on the side.

Sometimes it's Border Patrol. Sometimes it's just a a series

of black Suburbans without estate plates.

And every time I'm I'm driving or I'm walking and I see these

cars usually going by in a flash, like immediately I have

this like tightness in my chest, this anxiety that that comes up

and I'm like, what's going on? What's about to go down?

Who are they here for? What should I do in this moment?

My mind immediately jumps to Raul, leader of one of the

churches that we helped to start over an Eastie resurrection.

Raul is here in the country legally, but a few months ago

was detained and kept in jail for a couple of weeks, separated

from his family at a routine immigration hearing.

And I'm glad to say that Raoul was was eventually through a lot

of prayers and petitions and and wrestling was released and is

back. And I saw him a couple weeks

ago. But I wonder for the others like

him who, who haven't done anything wrong, but my neighbors

in Dorchester who are Cape Verdean or Haitian or

Guatemalan, I wonder what their experience is going to be like.

Are these vehicles there for some of them?

And, and I have this, this wave of anxiety that comes up in me

as I consider this reality that is unwelcome.

I'll share this with you, not so you can be worried about me, but

because I noticed something that I think is important for us in

this dynamic. And, and the sources of your

anxiety and overwhelm may well be different than mine.

I don't expect that we all have the same story or the same

situation, but I know enough of you to know that that a lot of

us walk through the world feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe for you, it's the the questions about like, hey, how,

how AI is going to affect your economic prospects.

Maybe it's a mountain of credit card debt.

Maybe for you, it's the question of singleness and whether you'll

find that person. Maybe it's a family member or an

individual who's struggling with a chronic health condition.

And every time you think of them, you have this, this surge

of adrenaline, this surge of anxiety that comes up in your

chest and you're not sure what to do.

And often in these times I find for my, for myself, like I want

to swing to, to like 1 pole or the other right part of me

immediately in these moments of crisis, I want to, I want to

have a response that is equal to the source of my stress.

I'm kind of like an, an organiser, A mobiliser.

So I immediately start to systemically map out a plan for

how we're going to like respond to the immigration crisis.

And sometimes I'll go like really intensely for a week or

two and then I'm completely exhausted and burnt out.

More often I, I, I feel like, honestly, I just want to like go

home and pull the covers over my head, watch some comedians on

Netflix, you know, on my phone, right?

The latest roast that came out. It's, it's just like, it's,

it's, it's a lot. It's so overwhelming.

And so I, I want to check out and numb out and retreat because

I don't know what to do. This morning we find Daniel

facing problems that are very different than ours.

But the hero of our text here in chapter 6 has something in

common with us. He's facing an impossible, an

overwhelming reality at this point in the story.

Daniel has lived for a long time.

He's navigated multiple different emperors and and even

the regime is different. Babylon has fallen.

But now we've got Persia, new boss, same situation for all of

you, hoping that like a change in administration will solve

everything. It's not always how it goes.

Certainly that's Daniel's experience here, right?

He is now again at a high level in this administration, in the

Persian administration. Now he's one of the the most

important people in the land. But but his power, his privilege

does not protect him from the reality of what happens.

We see here that just as the king plans to set him over the

whole Kingdom in verse three that his rivals essentially

hatch a plot to take him down and they're successful.

In verse 10, we read that Daniel learns of of a new decree that

the king has made. He opens his iPhone and opens

his news reader of choice. And there's another terrible

headline. This one says if you pray to

anyone other than the king, you get fed to the lions.

That's a bad headline for Daniel, right?

And I don't know how I would react in that situation, but I

can imagine that Daniel had a lot of feels all of a sudden

that that that anxiety spiked. And, and perhaps there was the

question of like, how what do you do right?

Do you, do you organize among all of the other satraps to try

and kind of get the compassion and sympathetic people to

overthrow the bad guys to, to enact just laws?

Do you just hunker down and retreat into your basement and

take a hiatus from your routine of prayer?

Well, we read how Daniel responds.

In verse 10. We see that when Daniel learned

that the decree had been published, he went home to his

upstairs room where the windows open toward Jerusalem.

Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving

thanks to God. Daniel's choice, His response

here is to break the law. Daniel does what he has always

done. He commits to the way of

integrity. Now, you could read this, some

people have as like an act of defiance like this is this is a

protest. This is a like in your face

Darius, You can't tell me what to do, bro.

I'm going to get out here. I'm going to I'm going to do

this public protest of prayer. But there's a key line in the

text right here at the end of verse 10 that puts Daniel's

action in perspective. The text says he prayed just as

he had done before. I think this is important.

See, Daniel here is not out trolling for a battle.

He he didn't go looking for a megaphone.

He simply refused to change his rhythm at the dictates of the

regime. He kept doing the small,

ordinary thing that he'd been doing for years, even if he

knows it will get him thrown to the lions.

And I think this is really important because it's easy for

us to read the story of Daniel and to imagine it as kind of

like a courage story, like Daniel is a moral exemplar of

somebody who is really courageous and brave, and we

should be brave like Daniel. Of course Daniel is brave.

And sure, that's maybe a good take away, but I don't think

that's the main point or purpose of this text because the text

isn't telling us about a dramatic decision.

It's telling us about a continued practice.

Daniel doesn't become faithful here in Chapter 6.

He'd been faithful like we've seen this week after week

through this series. As he's confronted with

challenge, he continues to root into his identity.

He continues to turn towards God.

He continues to show up. The dramatic moment exposes the

life that was already there. And honestly, I think this is

really important because for us, as as we've already been

discussing this morning, I think when we are faced with an

overwhelming reality, whatever your overwhelming reality is,

right? In fact, go ahead and and take a

moment right now, consider one thing in your life that causes

you stress, one thing that feels overwhelming, crushing, like a

burden. You don't know what to do.

Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's a question about your

future, right? But there's, there's something

in all of our lives that we hold with a heaviness we're not sure

what to do about. When we think about it, when we

sit with it, anxiety comes up within us.

And I think for many of us, we want to, we want to generate

from that anxiety a fix that will solve the problem.

Like we, we think we need a big reaction that is, that is right

sized to the problem, that can solve for it, that can take care

of it such that we'll be OK. I have to tell you, I've started

to grow a little bit suspicious of big responses, at least in

myself. I'm not saying that every big

response is this way, but I've noticed that a lot of times that

the big responses, the responses that seek to control, to fix, to

resolve, have less to do with love or integrity or

authenticity and more to do with relieving the anxiety that we

are carrying. Like we want to over function,

we want to power up, we want to resolve the situation because

it's overwhelming. And so we think we need a, a, a

big response to solve for it. And it's actually a dynamic

because so often we ping pong back and forth, don't we,

between the big response on the one side, the anxious response

that over functions and then the, the collapse, the shutdown,

the like, well, this is too big, this is too scary.

Let me just, I don't know if there's anything behind me right

now. Let me just back up and retreat.

I can't deal with it. I can't face it, I can't sit

with it. And so I need to.

I need to get small, I need to get away.

I just need to go back to my life.

Meanwhile, Daniel takes a simple approach.

He doesn't invent something novel.

He doesn't become someone else. He just keeps faithfully praying

three times every day. In the late twenty 10s in

southern Arizona, there was a crisis at the border.

Thousands of migrants were crossing and dying.

The federal government, in an attempt to kind of prevent the

migration that was happening, had decided on a border strategy

called Prevention through Deterrence.

And what this strategy did was it would funnel everyone away

from the the major crossings and into the heart of the Snoring

Desert, one of the most vicious places on the continent people

would go anyway. The thought was this would deter

people. It didn't.

It just killed people. So thousands of people are

attempting this impossible, arduous crossing and actually

literally dying not of bullets, but of dehydration in the water.

It was in this moment that Doctor Scott Warren, in a small

ministry called No More Deaths. No Mas Muertes did something

that, on the face of it was kind of small, kind of humble.

They started trunking cans of water up into these deep hiking

trails and just dropping them, just leaving little snacks,

little packets of water, things along the trails that they

expected that the migrants would pass through.

And they did this. Even as they did this, they

found that the Border Patrol was going through and slashing the

jugs they were kicking over the water can, sometimes filming it

and posting it online. And in fact, the the the Border

Patrol, the federal government began aggressively criminalizing

any attempts at humanitarian aid for those who were crossing.

It was messing up with their strategy of prevention through

deterrence. So they repurposed some existing

laws and changed some enforcement mechanisms and and

decided that they would arrest Doctor Warren and his

colleagues. They would arrest him and charge

them with 20 years in federal prison, a felony offence for

giving water and socks and canned food and shelter to

people. As they were attempting this

crossing, Doctor Warren was in fact arrested.

He was brought up in charges. But here's I think where this

becomes so interesting because of Nomos Muertes, I'm definitely

saying that wrong. But because of the the work of

this small organization and and this one geologist who was in

his spare time taking breaks from being a professor to hike

up into the mountains, the federal government had to go to

court to argue on the record that it was a more serious and

dire offence to litter in a wildlife preserve by leaving

hands of water than it was to attempt life saving aid.

The government argued this. Ultimately the judge decided

that this was an act of free speech.

It was protected that he as in his religious freedom was

constitutionally protected to be able to offer people who are

dying water. This began to to change the

fabric of the situation. Now, look, there were lots of

people who still died in that desert.

His actions did not solve the entire border crisis, but they

did make a difference for some people.

And they did expose the frailty and the fear and the evil of

systems of empire. And see, this is what Daniel's

prayer does. Like it doesn't shatter

everything, but by opening his windows, he's not retreating

into his basement. By standing there in public

three times daily, facing towards Jerusalem, the place

that he is from his home, the place which he has been exiled

to, and then turning and attuning his heart towards the

Lord, calling out for provision, calling out for rescue.

Daniel does something that showcases the frailty of empire,

an empire that is afraid of an old man who goes to pray.

Daniel just does the small thing.

And I think this is so important because sometimes, like, it's

easy to read a text like this and, and, and, and flip on one

side or the other. On the one hand, to say, like

Daniel, you didn't do enough. You've got to do more.

You've got to resist. And friends, there are people on

social media who will tell you that your small acts of

faithfulness are not enough. If you didn't, if you didn't

sign all of the things, if you didn't post all of the things,

if you didn't take all of the actions, if you didn't show up

at all of the events, if you didn't help all of the people or

that it's not enough, right? There are voices who will tell

you this, but there's also voices and sometimes voices in

the church that will just say like, you know what?

No big deal. Like all you can do is thoughts

and prayers about it. Just stay home, right?

Don't worry about it. Just pray about it.

And Daniel does pray about it, but he does so in public.

He continues to do so in public. He doesn't duck this into the

dining room. He, as an administrative

official actively engaged in the politics of the land, defies the

order and breaks the law. And this here, I think, points

us to a third way where we can take small acts of faithfulness

that have the ability to shake even the foundations of empire.

Some of you may know the story of Vaclav Havel, the Czech

dissident. Havel lived in Soviet area,

Czechoslovakia, under kind of the last vestiges of the

communist regime there. And the communist regime in

Czechoslovakia at the time demanded total compliance.

Everyone had to act as if they believed that everything that

the state said was true. There were all of these ways in

which people had to signal compliance and and Havel argued

for a posture which he described as living within the truth.

Havel was a poet in a playwright and he he wrote a story.

He told a story of a of a green grocer, a grocery store owner

who who ran a small stand for fruits and vegetables and in his

window, among kind of the onions and the carrots that the state

had provided A placard for the grocery store owner to display.

The the placard said workers of the world unite, a sign that

simply in a small way reinforced the communist ideology of the

day and demanded that everyone fall in line.

And of course, it was a small thing, but but by posting up

this sign in the store that the grocery store owner would signal

to the police, the secret police, to his neighbors, to his

colleagues, he would say, hey, I'm walking in step with you.

I am not a threat. Don't worry about me, right?

I'm on your team. Even though, of course, the the

grocery store owner in Hobble story doesn't care about the

global proletariat. He doesn't even think about it.

He's just trying to save his skin.

He's just trying to go about his business.

But Hobble argued that the the whole regime is held up, propped

up by 1000 grocery store owners who all put the sign up in their

window in order to get along. So Hubble asked provocatively.

Well, like what happens one day if the grocery store owner

doesn't put the sign up? He's not starting a revolution,

organizing A protest, setting up a political party.

He just refuses to participate in the lie.

And by setting that boundary, by refusing to participate in the

lie, by choosing a pathway of faithfulness, things could be

shaken. In fact, Havel's story was so

concerning to the authorities that they immediately jailed him

for this. But it worked, certainly wasn't

only on him. But the communist regime came

down. It collapsed not through

revolution, but by ordinary people, one greengrocer at a

time, refusing to put up the sign.

I think Daniel opening his wisdom windows to Jerusalem, I

think Daniel is standing there three times a day as he always

had, is not a big thing. It's just a quiet, consistent,

faithful thing done in public in a way that begins to shift

things that that that denounces the lie that resists it, that

demands that everyone fall in line in compliance.

It's it's like Havel's story, in which the greengrocer doesn't

display the sign. It's like Scott Warren walking

into the desert with water jugs. And I know that this is

challenging for us to accept small acts of faithfulness,

because small acts of faithfulness don't adequately

calm our nervous systems. I have all this anxiety.

What shall I do? If I just do a small thing, it

doesn't fix it and I still have to sit with the anxiety.

So I must do more or I must detach and retreat.

But Daniel was doing something important here.

He is training himself over and over to be faithful, to show up.

And then, and this is where I think that this is so important

that that this is not primarily a story about courage and

bravery because yes, to be brave is important.

But but what Daniel does here in this moment of crisis is

downstream of that because his verse 10 tells us that Daniel

went to his upstairs room and prayed just as he had before.

The dramatic moment here doesn't make Daniel faithful.

It exposes the faithfulness that is already present.

Daniel had been building a spiritual practice of attuning

himself to God, of remembering who he is, not an administration

official in Persia trying to climb the ladder and be

successful, but a Jewish man in exile.

He he'd been turning his heart and spirit to the Lord over and

over again through decades. He had shown up faithfully in

response to to trial after trial, persecution and threat.

As we've seen in chapters one through 6 here, each week there

has been a challenge that has confronted Daniel and his

friends, often times at the risk of their very lives.

And each time they choose a pathway of faith and

faithfulness showing up. I don't know if you've ever

spent time with older Christians, like people in their

60s and 70s who've who've been with God not for like a year or

two or or 10 or 20, but for like 40 or 50I don't know that many

people like this, but I do know a few.

I'm so thankful for them. Like I'll tell you one thing

about them is that they are not anxious like they're, they're

not anxious about anything like they have this, this grounded

hope. They have this deep sense of

joy. They have this expectation that

God will show up and come through.

And they didn't get it, friends, by just like believing the Bible

harder, although they certainly did that.

They didn't get that just by being brave in one moment,

although they certainly did that.

They've become these kind of people through decades of

consistent time with Jesus. Time making spiritual practices

their reality. Time in community with other

people who reinforce what is true.

Showing up over and over again until at the core of their

being, they really are. People who believe.

Not just up here, but in their nervous systems, in their souls,

in their guts. People of faithful courage who

aren't easily rocked or swayed or thrown about.

James Clear, the author of habit formation fame, famously said,

if I can find the the quote here somewhere in this he famously

said that we do not rise to the level of our goals.

We fall to the level of our systems.

We don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level

of our systems. I think, friends, that so often

I want to be the kind of person that responds in the moment of

crisis with awesomeness. You know, I have great faith.

I have the ability to forgive epically.

I, I have the ability to, to, to stand there and pray for

healing. I have the ability to, to, to,

to courageously share my faith in that situation where it feels

risky. I have the ability to, to, to

boldly risk my own kind of well-being or standing or status

by being generous or by saying truth to power.

All of the kinds of things that we see Daniel and his friends do

here. But I think for many of us, we

we aspire to be these kinds of people, but we're not always

building in the formation that actually allows for it.

And so I think one of the questions of this text this

morning is, is like, who are you training to become in these

moments of stress? How are you training your soul

to numb out and detach by watching cat videos?

But sometimes me OK, like not throwing rocks at cat videos,

but but by like jumping into action and activism, by venting

to other people, right? When you think about that

stressor that you identified earlier, like how are you

responding to it? How are you training yourself to

respond to it? Who are you becoming as you sit

with the realities, the weight, the heaviness that exists all

around us, certainly by empire, but also just by living, trying

to make it another day in a family and relationships with

people. The world is heavy.

Friends are we people who are training our souls, who are

training our attention on Jesus, who are learning to look to him

over and over again such that in the moment of crisis we are the

people who will respond? You see, I wonder if who, how

Daniel would have shown up in this situation.

One of the thought experiments I had as I was preparing for this

talk was I got curious about the beard once again.

I got curious about the question of, like, what happens if Daniel

is just, you know, the guy who, like, is generally a good moral

Christian and, like, kind of praised before his meals most of

the time. And then the key king issues

this edict. Like, how do you think he shows

up in this moment? I, I don't know, but I suspect

he's like, well, you know, we're going to experiment with some

new spiritual practices this month.

You know, like, right, maybe maybe we'll pray, but I'm going

to try a different space in my house that is a bit more private

this month. Like perhaps I, it's so easy,

right? To begin to, to accommodate, to

try and try something new, to try and become someone new in

the moment of crisis. And it never works if we haven't

been training, if we haven't been preparing ourselves and our

souls for this kind of dependence on Jesus, of this

kind of returning to Jesus and running to Jesus, then in the

moment where we need it most, we're I'll equipped to do so.

And look, I named this as, as a, as a return to Jesus, as a

running to Jesus, because not only is that what we see Daniel

doing here in this text, he's opening his window to pray.

I I I think that's a beautiful example of one concrete way in

which small faithfulness takes is, is turning himself Godward.

What an interesting situation that that actually becomes a

protest against the regime here in Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

But but I name this because he needs God to solve the situation

like in any way. All right, this is not a viable

situation. Daniel does not in his own power

and strength have the ability to habit stack his way to the

defeat of the empire or the sealing of the mouths of the

lions. Like what we see in this text is

so incredible. It's so beautiful.

Like Daniel ultimately, of course, you know, the story is

thrown to the lions. He he goes into the den and of

course, he's not eaten. And this is something that

Daniel cannot manufacture. Like supernatural rescue has to

take place here. This is the piece that only God

can do. And of course, as we've talked

about in previous iterations of the series, God doesn't always

show up miraculously. Not everybody gets saved, but

this is the story that we see here and it cascades into

something so beautiful and so powerful.

It's not just that like Daniel was faithful and had good

habits, God intervenes, right? God meets him in that

orientation, God word. And I love how this unfolds,

right? The king, of course, is forced

to give to the order he's he's thrown.

And then we see in verse 18 that the king returns to his palace

and I love this. The most powerful man in the

empire spends all night not eating without any

entertainment. He can't sleep.

The king himself who issued the decree is like a wreck.

He's messed up worrying for Daniel.

And and we see what he asks here in verse 20.

He comes and he says to Daniel, has your God whom you serve

continually? The king has noticed Daniel's

practice, been able to rescue you from the lions.

This Pagan man, this king who is only interested in his own

power, who wants everyone to worship him, he is so astounded

by this man's faith, this man's courage, which was forged and

formed in continual practice, that even this Pagan king can't

escape the question. Maybe Daniel's God is the real

deal. Like if this guy believes so

much, if this guy keeps living this way, maybe God, the God of

Daniel really can save. And then Daniel calls out in

verse 21, May the king live forever.

Not like you've done me any favours around the living

forever thing. But king, may you live for any.

May you live forever anyway. Turning the other cheek if I

ever saw it. My God, send his Angel and shut

the mouths of the lions. They haven't hurt me, your

Majesty. In verse 23, we see the king is

overjoyed. He gives orders to lift Daniel

out of the den and then check this.

This is crazy. Verse 24, the king or or in 24,

he commands the the the men who falsely accused Daniel to to be

thrown into the den. But in verse 25, he writes the

emperor to all the nations and peoples of every language in the

earth. May you prosper greatly.

I issue a decree that in every part of my Kingdom people must

fear and reverence the God of Daniel, for he is the living

God. Guys like Amen, like, yay, like,

how cool is this, right? And Daniel's God is proved to be

the real God, the living God, the the one of power.

Because he shows up, Daniel is rescued, and even the Pagan

king, even the systems with the force of an evil empire are

brought to their knees. To say there's something here

that we can't explain. There's something authentic.

Friends, what would it be like for you and for me to be the

kind of people that God can use? People who were so practiced in

turning our attention to God. Word that that under moments of

stress in challenging situations like like we live in a

challenging situation in a stressful city, some of us kind

of like that and some of us are completely taken out by that.

But it is the reality. And when we look around at at

those neighbors that Haley was talking about earlier, so many

people are anxious, stressed out, overwhelmed or or at least

over functioning in the rat race, right?

Trying to get ahead, trying to trying to manage it.

Maybe their strategies are still working at the moment, or we

find them numbed out and collapse because they've tried

and they've burnt out and now they don't know what to do.

I wonder what a witness would look like that just trained our

souls in such a way that we were people in our offices, in our

families, in our friend groups, in our neighborhoods that showed

up with grounded presence. Not anxious, not over

functioning, not needing to save the world, but looking to Jesus

with hope, faithfully turning our attention to Him, and then

taking small acts of faithfulness and love that

pointed to the Kingdom. Small acts that said, I get it.

You might come for me, you might throw me in jail, but I'm going

to refuse to put that sign about the proletariat in my grocery

store. You may charge me with a felony,

but I'm going to take a hike out in the woods and help somebody.

Not woods, I guess, but take a hike out into the desert and

help give water to somebody who's in danger of dying.

Friends, I want to be authentic this morning.

Sometimes responding in this way doesn't protect us.

It actually can take us into harm's way.

It forces us to sit with the anxieties of reality in a way

that doesn't over function and try and fix them or or bail out

and try and numb out. It demands that we become people

who train our souls to sit in the presence of Jesus.

If we do, I believe friends, that he will show up and that we

will get to see the power and beauty of God.

That others will look at our lives and say, Ashley Scott is

the real God. Mike is God is the real God.

Emmanuel Scott is is the real and living God.

I know it because I've seen it. That person has walked it out in

front of me. As the band comes this morning,

I want to invite you into a time of reflection.

We've got these carpets down here at the front.

If you were the kind of person who we are always inviting us

into our bodies here at the garden, if you're the kind of

person who wants to kneel or sit or or or or contemplate or

journal, you're welcome to come and use these spaces and stay

right in your seat where you're at.

I'll be up at the front here if you'd like to talk or pray with

somebody. But as the band begins to play

this first song, I want to invite you to consider 2

questions. The 1st is where am I feeling

the pressure today, right? Maybe it's big systems or maybe

it's like my relationship with my spouse, right?

Maybe it's a small or personal thing that's hidden that no one

else knows about. Where do you feel the pressure

today? What would it look like for you

to bring that? In fact, I want to invite you in

this moment right now to actually actively bring that,

that space of stress to Jesus and say Jesus, hey, I remember

who I am. I remember whose I am.

I want you to hold this for me. I, I, I, I want to renounce and

resist over functioning and trying to solve it or numbing

out and trying to avoid it. Would you be with me in this?

Then I want to invite you to ask Jesus a second question as you

share that with him. Go ahead and ask the Lord what

is the small act of faithfulness like?

I can't do everything. It's not my job to solve the

problems of the world. I'm way too small for that.

But what's my peace? God, what are you asking me this

week to do as relates to this area of overwhelm that I'm

sitting in? Would you do that?

Let me pray for us. And as the band begins to play

underneath, I want to invite you into this time of reflection and

response. Jesus, thanks for being bigger

than us. Thanks for having broader

shoulders. God, we can't carry the weight

of the world. The problems of our society and

our culture, even our own problems are so big they feel

crushing, exhausting, overwhelming.

God, I pray that we would be people who would repent of both

the over functioning, striving, trying to be the white knight,

the Saviour who takes on everything and solves

everything. Help us to live in our limits

and in our place, the place that you've given us, the place that

you've called us to. But God, I pray that we would

also not be people who check out, who avoid, who numb, who

just decide to to be an administrator or a geologist or

a poet and write about other things.

God would you help us to be people who turn to you and who

faithfully show up in the ways that you call us to, trusting

you that even small things can be used to shake the foundations

of empire.