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Weekly Words for the Journey

To My Beloved PBBC Community

“A Prayer for Those in Ministry”
By Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back, and take the long view.
The Kingdom of Heaven 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 another 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,
and we water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects 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 the workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
May that future be filled with grace, peace and hope.
Amen.

This may be one of those times, when it helps to step back and take the long view, to know that we see only in part what God’s future has in store, to believe that God is hard at work…within us, among us, through us AND beyond us. May that give us grace, peace, and above all, hope.

Here’s to planting seeds, laying foundations, and doing some things well,
Pastor Claudine