
A couple of Sundays ago, I preached the sermon at church... that didn’t make for the most restful morning... but believe me, the time after the sermon was all the more restful. The anxiety was past, the work was finished, and the weight was lifted off my shoulders. So everything that followed was just that much more enjoyable.
Amanda and I went to the Princeton Hospital, where we’re planning to have the baby, where they were having a free “Baby Shower” for the community. It was something like an open house. They were offering tours and they had a ton of booths from various pregnancy and baby-nurturing organizations and programs. There was free cake! And even though I wouldn’t necessarily have gone to that event had it been up to me, it was a time where I was free to just imagine Henry, to dream about Henry—to picture him taking a baby music class or going to story-time at the library or whatever. Nothing else was important.
So I think that the time we spend recalling God’s provision and grace in our lives isn’t just about remembering something from the past, but it has a future quality. The provision of God in the past corresponds to where the world is headed in the future. We're remembering what has been said about us according to what God has done and is doing. What God has said about us from our beginning is true according to the future we share with God, a future of resurrection and redemption. God's word in the beginning is a promise... a promise revealed in Jesus, having found and yet awaiting and heading toward its complete historical and eschatological validation... a promise which conditions the present and gives it its true character. So when we consider promise of our future, we’re free to rest in the present according to the goodness and love of God.
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