A Letter From Pastor Alicia

“Possibilities”
“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” Psalm 37:5
On Wednesday, December 17, 1903 at 10:35 a.m., an event of great significance happened at Kittyhawk, North Carolina. Dayton, Ohio natives, the Wright Brothers, flew their homemade aircraft 120 feet. It stayed aloft for 12 seconds.

When a Dayton newspaper editor heard the news, he reacted negatively. He wrote this in his editorial the following day, “Men will never be able to fly and if they ever do, it won’t be anybody from Dayton.”

How like this editor so many of us are – myself included! So often we refuse to even try anything new in our lives or in the congregation. We fail to take chances because we can only see the bad that might happen. So often, then, we rule out many wonderful possibilities that could take place.

Dr. John Harris, Director of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Miami Valley Hospital states, “Too many of us miss important aspects of living simply because we refuse to open ourselves to life’s incredible possibilities. We too often fail to look beyond our self-imposed limits and arbitrarily decide what is possible and impossible. It is an absolutely tragic thing we do. This kind of willful blindness narrows what life has to offer.” (Pastoral Care & Counseling, Miami Valley Hospital, Spring 2008).

What can we do to make ourselves less negative and more open to new possibilities, possibilities that will allow God to make God’s presence known and felt – possibilities that will draw our eyes and the eyes of those who do not know God to God and God’s glory, love, mercy, and grace?

The psalmist tells us to commit ourselves to the LORD, to trust in God, and God will act. If we but look to God, who provides the Holy Spirit to all who believe, God will send the Spirit to improve our attitudes, to give us good courage, to empower and enable us to open ourselves to unex-pected and wonderful possibilities, and to be instruments of a God who longs to work through us to change this world for the better. 

There is so much that can be accomplished in God’s name if we but tap into the power of God, who longs to act.

"Nothing is done," Lincoln Steffens once wrote. "Everything in the world remains to be done --or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted. The greatest play isn't written. The greatest poem is unsung." Nothing is perfect, we can add. There's no perfect airline. There's no perfect government. there's no perfect law.

Faucets still drip, as one did years ago in the Steffens household. As he and his seven-year-old son tried to fix it, Steffens had to admit that his generation could not make a fit faucet. "But," said Steffens, referring to his son," he may. There's a job for him and his generation in the plumbing business, and in every other business. Teach your children that nothing is done, finally and right; that nothing is known, positively and completely; that the world is theirs--all of it. Bits and Pieces, April 1990, p. 7.

The world is theirs, AND ours, if we but trust that new possibilities are endless and we open ourselves to them, trusting in God to provide them through us.

May you all have a blessed, enjoyable and safe summer. And may it be filled with endless breathtaking possibilities.

Yours in the love of Christ,
Pastor Alicia