O God,

Help us to live as those who are prepared to die.

And when our days here are accomplished,

enable us to die as those who go forth to live,

so that living or dying, our life may be in you,

and that nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us

from your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

(Services of Death and Resurrection in The United Methodist Book of Worship)

Albert Einstein taught the world that time is relative. You don’t have to comprehend the math to appreciate the concept. Time flies when you’re having fun, and the seconds creep when you’re having dental work!

I’ve seen the same theorem at work in church life.

• People punctually arrive at school and work on weekdays. The same persons straggle into worship 10+ minutes late on Sundays.
• In November, I attended the UGA/Tech football game with 55,000 close friends who filled the stadium for three hours. However, church members get antsy if a worship service lasts more than an hour.
• TV devotees binge watch shows for countless hours; but the idea of spending an hour in Bible study or prayer appears daunting.
• Parents religiously ensure their children attend athletic practices, dance recitals, Scout meetings, academic events, and tutoring sessions. Many of these same children will not be present at Sunday School or youth group.

In his book, All In, Mark Batterson wrote, “We all want to spend eternity with God. We just don’t want to spend time with God.”

Time is relative.

Eternity is not.

Sue Allen, Director of Women’s Ministries at Northside Church, recently published a devotional that I’m sharing with permission.

The omnipresent God whose name is not distant but nearer to us than we can imagine. God is not alien to the circumstances of our lives but comes to us in them. It is relatively

easy to meet God in moments of joy or bliss. In these situations, we correctly count ourselves blessed.

The challenge is to believe that God is also true — and to know God’s presence — in the midst of doubt, depression, anxiety, conflict or failure. But the God who is Immanuel is equally in those moments we would never choose as in those we would always gladly choose.

Richard Rohr reminds us that “we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What is absent is our awareness” (David Benner’s The Gift of Being Yourself, 41).

Immanuel. What a beautiful name. God with us.

I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat by the door
And never be put on again.

I wish we could come on it all unaware
Like the hunter who finds a lost trail
And I wish that the one whom our blindness has done
The greatest injustice of all
Could be at the gates like an old friend that waits
For the comrade he’s gladdest to hail.

We would find all the things we intended to do
But forgot, and remembered too late;
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken
And all of the thousand and one
Little duties neglected that might have perfected
The day for one less fortunate.

It wouldn’t be possible not to be kind
In the Land of Beginning Again
And the ones we misjudged and the ones whom we grudged
Their moments of victory then
Would find in the grasp of our loving handclasp
More than penitent lips could explain.

For what had been hardest we’d know had been best
And what had seemed loss would be gain
For there isn’t a sting that will not take a wing
When we’ve faced it and laughed it away,
And I think that the laughter is most what we’re after
In the Land of Beginning Again.

So I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat by the door
And never be put on again.