We must remember that we live tenuous and fragile lives that guarantee nothing. In good times, we tend to feel strong, indestructible, and permanent. We get boastful and take on a strut and a bit of swagger, and we know we can't fall, and feel no need for God. But fall we do. A turn in our health, career, relationships, or reputation can knock us back to bottom. Stunned, we don't understand what happened. Embarrassed, we shun showing our faces in public. We stop calling our friends (or they stop calling us)... and we turn, after a long absence, back to God again. In him, we find a strength we had not known even before our fall. We are born again and we rise up. When this happens, let's be sure not to confuse God's strength as our own. This is the very thing that leads to the fall in the first place. Stay humble. Stay clear. It is by the grace of God that we live, breathe, and move in and through this space and time.
Readings: 2 Samuel 20:14-22:20; Acts 1:1-26; Psalm 121:1-8; Proverbs 16:18
