GOD SAID: “TAKE CHARGE” by Cheri Holdridge

I hate feeling cranky. Do you? I was not on top of my game this week. I was behind on the house work. We still have Christmas stuff to put away (we usually keep things up through Epiphany aka Three Kings Day aka Kurt’s Birthday aka January 6th). I was behind on my work for The Village. My kids were cranky because they had to go back to school. My “to do” list was this long, and my energy level was this short. By mid-week I was having a pity party. I want to be a person who is joyful and thankful for blessings. But this week, I was just feeling sorry for myself. And that just made me mad. Because I don’t want to be a whiner. So THEN it just got even worse, because I was beating up on myself. Because I felt I like be thankful that I had a lovely Christmas with my sister and her partner came here from Mississippi, my niece came here from out of state, but all I could do was whine about tired I was, and how behind I felt at work because of taking time off to be with family.

We all have choices you know. We can look at life as one of joy or one of sorrow, one of blessing or one of tragedy, abundance or scarcity. Because we all get some of both. Joy and sorrow live together. We get to choose – which we will embrace. God invites us to choose joy, blessing and abundance. God invites us to choose those.

From the very beginning, God has invited us to choose what is good. And so we are going to start there today, it’s January, the beginning of the year: at the very beginning of our story with God, the creation story. It’s a wonderful story: seven amazing days of creation. And at the end of each day, the story teller says one thing: “God saw that it was good.” You know, we could end each day with a prayer, giving thanks for what was good, it would make such a difference in our lives! Wouldn’t it? The gratitude prayer, ending each day journaling about what we were thankful for.

I want to tell you a story. This past summer, I had one of the best days of my entire 20 years as a pastor. It was the day of Toledo Pride. There was a midway, with booths, a dunking tank, etc. I passed out rainbow stickers that said: “Made in God’s Image.” Everyone smiled as I said, “You look like God” and put a sticker on them. I talked to lots of Young people. People who did not expect in a million years anyone from a church to give them a word of blessing and affirmation In Toledo, OH, when two men, or two women, could walk down the street as a couple, freely, without fear, and I could tell both of them “you look like God” – your relationship is a gift from God. It was a day to claim that we are all good. We are all blessed. We have an abundance of joy. We are enough in God’s eyes. Just as we are. It was like the Day of Creation.

You see, that’s how it all started. On the day of creation, God said, “I am making you like me, and you are enough. You are good.” And God said something else: “I am giving you this world. It’s yours, And I am putting you in charge.” (What was God thinking? is a thought that crosses our mind) And that was good too.

Now somewhere along the way, things got messed up. Now the rest of the Bible is the story of that. And we are going to spend the rest of this year, and probably the rest of our lives trying to understand how that all happened and how to make it right.

But this is how it started. God made the world. And it was good. And God made us, in God’s image. And we are good and beautiful and we are enough. If you don’t hear anything else today, hear that.

But somewhere along the way, we became dissatisfied. And we got the idea that we never have enough. So this year at The Village we have a theme. This is it. Are you ready?
WE HAVE ENOUGH. Say it right now - WE HAVE ENOUGH
We want more, but we have enough.
We want more money, time, love; we want better physical health, emotional health, better jobs, smarter children, bigger houses, _____ ( you fill in the blank).
We have enough!

Now some of us do not have enough. We don’t have jobs. I GET that. But there is enough to go around. Globally there is enough to go around. We have just done a bad job of sharing. We can do better. We can be kinder. We can be more generous. We showed that in a tiny way with our Christmas offering.

Yesterdays actions in Arizona show the worst of our nation. But for every outrageous criminal act like the shooting in Arizona yesterday, there are just as many stories of courage and generosity. We can do better. We must do better.

But the change starts with here and now with each one of us. The world changes when each individual decides to choose blessing and goodness. We can choose to live believing that we have enough, rather than always wishing we had more.

In creation, God has already given us everything we need. We just have to access the resources we already have. We all have the same number of hours in a day. So we have enough time. We just have to decide what is most important for us to do with our time. There is enough money we just have to make good choices. We live in the richest nation in the world. I know it’s hard out there right now, and we are going to spend some time this year helping each other tackle those hard money issues.

But time and money aren’t even our biggest worries. We want healing in our relationships. We want love and reconciliation. And here is the thing. God gives us enough inner strength to have all that too. REALLY! God gives us the inner resources to face much more than we give ourselves credit for. We have the inner strength, the courage, the wisdom to deal with all that stuff we need to face in life. It’s just that we often choose to avoid. So this year, at The Village, we’re going to take some time, together, to tackle these hard issues: money, time, relationships, physical and emotional health. Because I believe God wants us to live with joy.

So, Here is the starting point, that’s why we started with the beginning of the Bible. On the day of creation, God gave us this earth. And God said: “Take charge.” We are connected to this planet. God made it. God made us. And God made us THE CARE-TAKERS of this earth. God put us in charge and gave us all the resources. We have enough. We have enough of everything. All the earth belongs to us. God gave it to us as a gift. But we spend most of our time fighting over pieces of it and wanting more. So this year, at The Village, we are going to focus on this idea, the idea that everything we think we have, is a gift from God. It all belongs to God from the beginning and is a gift from God. And now it is ours to care for. And because God has given us these blessings, it must be enough to give us all the joy we need in life. But God made this creation, and it was good.

We are going to take our time, reflecting on these ideas together this year. This week, I want to invite you to pray a simple prayer. Wherever you are, just look around and remember that this creation is God’s give to us, and that God told us to take charge. And then just pray this simple prayer: “We have enough.” I want to invite us all this year to pray that simple prayer this week and beyond, “we have enough”.

Don’t feel it yet, join us at the Village this entire year as we journey together on this journey. Worship Celebrations are at 9:45 & 11:30 Sundays and we will be having small groups to help with all of these issues. Come join us.