Hello Everyone!!!! Hope you are all very blessed. We had a fantastic time at
Remember we have worship tonight at 6:30pm and then a free meal and Bible Study on Thursday, again at 6:30pm.
Are there any of you out there who would be interested in putting together a 3 person team (or several) to play in a basketball tournament at Christ UMC on Saturday, May 2? Let me know. They could also use help setting up too. Very cool!
Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:
Yesterday Tim and I stepped out of Kroger’s on Scottsville road and saw the most beautiful rainbow. It stretched all the way across the sky. It was amazing. So beautiful. It was hard not to stop and stare at it as we were making our way back to the car. And is was also kind of cool to hear the gasps coming from others as they stepped outside for the first time. It was kind of a validation that we had witnessed something impressive. Others noticed it too.
As we made our way home, I kept trying to get a good picture of it before it faded, and before the road veered toward a different direction. Here’s the best picture I got:
This is the best one I got. I hated it that it’s in a parking lot, and the view is obscured by traffic lights, billboard signs, and the golden arches. But then I began to reflect upon the significance of God’s grace. God doesn’t just choose pretty landscapes to reveal His glory. And He certainly does not reserve His grace for only those lives that are already well ordered and pretty. In fact, Jesus makes it very clear that He comes to those who need him. In response to the Pharisees he says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). So why should I complain that God’s beautiful sign of promise appears in the midst of an ugly human landscape? Isn’t that where it is needed most?
I love that it also means that things in my life don’t have be perfect for the hand of God to begin to move in them. Often, that is when I need to see glimpses of God the most, when I feel most desperate, most separated from His love, and the most surrounded by the fallout from my own mistakes. It’s like we all need to be able to look around at the debris of our lives and say, “Yeah, I’m responsible for that, but I see that His mercy is bigger than the mistake that got me here.”
Recently I watched a movie starring Antonio Bandares called Take the Lead. It is the story of a dance instructor who is moved to begin teaching ballroom dancing to students in an inner-city high school who are relegated to detention in the basement. There comes this moment when his regular dance students confront these street wise kids and basically tell them their efforts are worthless and don’t amount to anything. The inner-city kids are dejected, ready to give up. They feel Banderes has fed them, a bunch of “rejects,” a pack of lies, and that he should just give up too. And then he says to them, “I don’t see rejects. I see choices that have yet to be made.” He tells them that excelling does take work, but they have it within them to choose excellence. Isn’t that good news? Isn’t that the hope we all need to hear? That our lives are not determined by the mistakes of our past but by our ability to allow something better to take root? That’s what a rainbow over McDonald’s means to me. It feels like God saying, “You may have given up on yourself, your dreams, your life, but I haven’t given up on you. And I can show up in the most un-likeliest places.”
As we complete another semester together, let’s remember that we are still in the season of Easter. It is still a time to reflect on the amazing ability to God to turn things around in our lives in un-mistakable and even un-likely ways. God is not bound by any human condition. In fact even death is not a hindrance to Him. He promises to make all things new (Revelations 21:5). And as you finish the next few weeks, remember that He is with you, and He is completely able to work in any circumstance you have. You just have to allow Him. He has a rainbow for you too.
This is me trusting,
Sami
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Sami Wilson
Campus Minister/Director
WKU Wesley Foundation
United Methodist Campus Ministry
270-842-2880
sami.wilson@wku.edu
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