It was a year ago today that we were abruptly ushered into our current season. After my readings this morning I couldn’t help but pull up the e-mails of a year ago and read through them. E-mails to a network of praying people who were petitioning a listening God. E-mails that tried to inform of the emerging details of a crisis that surprised us . . . and that tried to also convey the reality of the presence of the God which sustained us. Sustained by the One who is not ashamed to call me “brother” . . .

For it was fitting that He, for Whom and by Whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the Founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers . . .   (Hebrews 2:10-11, 14a ESV)

O the degree to which our God determined to enter our world! The depths to which His blessed Son willingly chose to identify with His wayward creation. God in flesh . . . God doing life on this orb . . . God subject to the frailties of the human body . . . God experiencing the realities of a world spoiled by sin. All that the Shepherd might know experientially what it was to be a sheep . . . “that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” (2:17).

And because “He himself partook of the same things”, sharing in the flesh and blood of the children (2:14), He is able to help those who are being tempted (2:18) . . . able to come alongside those who have been thrown into the spiral of confusing circumstance . . . able to stabilize the shaking ground . . . able to impart Spirit-infused grace sufficient to maintain equilibrium.

Because He became flesh, He is not ashamed to identify with us as brothers and sisters. And because He has graciously elected to so connect Himself with us . . . to so encounter our realities . . . to so engage in our lives . . . we can know that ever present help in times of need.

And the wonder is less about realizing a happy ending than it is about knowing His abiding presence. It’s not great just because it could have been worse, it’s amazing because of the tangible reality of that which we embrace by faith. It’s not praiseworthy because it’s turns out how the way we want, it’s worthy of praise because He is all He has promised to be.

He calls me brother. I own Him as Lord.

Having promised me His world, He prepares me for it . . . having entered my world, He helps me through it . . .

A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.   
                                                                        (Proverbs 17:17 ESV)

Kind of rambling this morning . . . kind of thankful this morning . . .

By His grace . . . for His glory . . .