God's Order

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Fifth Sunday in Lent BCP 219)


Entropy is a scientific concept ranging throughout all varieties of scientific endeavor. Entropy describes the state of disorder in a system and its movement away from order. If left to themselves, many systems move towards greater disorder over time. Humans have this problem too. Without some guiding forces or values in our lives, our desires and wants can lead us into disorder, both personally and communally. If left unchecked, our increasing desires can lead us right down the path of entropy into sin.


Being in relationship with God gives us the values and guidance to order our lives, personally and communally. God alone can bring order to our desires and affections, as well as the vast array of the universe. When we put our trust and faith in God's working in our lives, we find ourselves able to find peace from the disorder of our world. As we head through this season of Lent towards Holy Week and the new life of Easter, we can meditate on the disorder of our own lives and the ways in which we can allow God to guide and fix our hearts. 


Take some time today to think about your own desires and affections. Do they follow Jesus' teachings or do they diverge and point you elsewhere? Pray, as in the Collect for this coming Sunday, that God may guide your heart and bring you the peace of knowing God's order and love. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nutritional Wellness

Image
I love food.  The tastes, the smells, the experience of eating.  I even like gardening and the creation of food. The cooking and baking processes of making individual items into marvelous meals.  My digestive system has a much more complicated relationship with food. There are many things my digestive system overreacts to or feels the need to attack.  Over the years of trying to figure out what my digestive system will tolerate I've had to change my focus on eating for wellness  and learn to create the things I like with the ingredients my body also likes. Its not an immediate change in mindset. It takes time and energy and reminders. Because eating is such a communal experience, it has also taken community adjustment. Finding family and friends who will support my journey and focus on wellness.  I have found that my focus on wellness has been a little bit contagious.  As others have supported me in focusing on digestive wellness, others have been inspired to focus on their own nut
Read more

Book Review: Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy, And Raise A Little Hell, by Karen Walrond

Image
This isn't a scientific book about aging. It isn't a book about how to age well or what you should do as you are aging. It is a book about aging into who you want to be.  It is a book about looking into the mirror and seeing the smile on your face and light in your eyes. Karen Walrond guides us on the journey she took leading up to her year of aging anniversaries and milestones. She explains how she took the time and space in her life to reflect on what it means to age, to acknowledge and combat internalized ageism, and to figure out who she wanted to be as she grew older. She shares some research, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from professionals and elders in her life. As in her previous books, her conversational writing style, easy prose, and gift of storytelling makes this an interesting and engaging read. She offers thoughtful challenges to the 'normal' ways we think about age and what it means to grow older.  Karen Walrond doesn't take the reader on this jo
Read more

The Question of Faith

  What do you have faith in? Now I know the parables are good today, And I'm not going to talk about them Because one of the most basic things about religion is faith. You can blame St. Paul for today's sermon. All religions require faith. Faith is the belief in things not seen. In some ways, all the ideals we aspire to love, justice, charity, hope they are the bedrock on which any religion is created, including some things we don't think of as religion, but could be construed that way, are things we cannot see. We can't see justice, certainly these days we don't see a lot of evidence for it. We can't see equality or freedom or peace because they are ways of talking about systems in which everyone belongs and feels comfortable being themselves and we know we have not achieved that kind of world. Anyway, without faith, there is no religion no Christianity, no Judaism, no Islam, no Jainism, no pantheism. In the passage from Paul to the Romans, he writes, "Now
Read more