😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you. Today I would like to share with you the final reflection of The Little Blue Book Advent and Christmas Season 2022-2023, which was dated 01/09/2023.
‘Prophets of a future not our own’
While serving as a priest in the Detroit Archdiocese, Bishop Ken Untener wrote the following for a talk to be given by Cardinal John F. Dearden of Detroit.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way
of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water the seeds already planted, knowing
that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense
of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
I pray this shines some light on the realities of God’s call upon your life and that you know you are not in this alone. Some actions you take will be the finishing touch to actions begun years ago by someone you may never meet or know. There will be times when you work side by side with someone to keep an action in motion. And there will be times that God will utilize your talents to get a forward motion started, that three generations down the road, others will still be continuing the work you started for God’s glory and honor.
Brian and I enjoy watching a show called Barnwood Builders. It fascinates me that these barns and cabins from the 1700’s and 1800’s were built with such great quality, that they are being utilized to create new homes today. I can’t imagine that the original laborers and home owners would have imagined this future for their homes and the tools and machinery that are being used now compared to them doing the work by hand. There have been times during our home planning and building project that we try to look beyond just our needs, to what we think future owners would possibly do or want, and try to set the home and property up so they could easily transition to what they want.
At different times in your life, you will be the beginning, the middle, and the end of different aspects of the Christian mission here on earth. Actively ask God and seek what your purpose and part of His mission is, and may you pursue it with the wisdom and zeal of the Holy Spirit.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
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Third Day Devotions 