The world is God’s and it will not fall apart.
The new age which the Lord has begun cannot be driven out or held back.
The church need not live out of fear as though the gospel were not true.
Instead, we are destined to live toward freedom, toward the pain of the world, toward the hurt of the world, toward the joy of the world:
The hurt and pain the world does not understand and the joy the world does not anticipate.
As Jesus left he reminded the church that we are able to risk much because we are safe.
We may need to focus much on shalom as a task, but it begins at the table as assurance.
So bring your fears to the table of bounty.
Here the bread of promise and the cup of joy shall soothe every seething heart, loosen every clenched fist.
Here find your freedom, casting off the rule of shame with hearts sustained by the goodness of God in the land of the living.
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Adapting language from Living Toward a Vision by Walter Brueggemann and Psalm 27:13