Day 3: Great is Your Faithfulness | 2024 Pre-Conference Devotional

Written by Carter Kelly.

Is the “your'' in this passage referring to us as the reader or to God? Why not both? God’s faithfulness is great and so may be ours. As God has faith in us and imbues us with grace and mercy, so may we have faith in God. Our relationships with God have a beautiful capacity to be reciprocal and dynamic. We do not worship a passive, stone-faced God who takes without giving. We instead delight in the living and co-creative relationship that God has blessed us with.

We have just passed and celebrated the Epiphany, the time when three wise ones from across the world converged on Jesus’ birthplace. In the traditional story, they had faith that the star they followed would lead them to something great, that they would receive blessings for acknowledging the birth of a new kind of leader, and that the ancient symbols of power that they gifted - frankincense, gold, and myrrh - would help to confirm that Christ would grow up to be great. As Matthew tells us, the wise ones knew of Herod’s plan to kill the children of Bethlehem. They knew Herod would press them for information about the birthplace of Jesus and the holy family’s whereabouts, so they returned to their homes by another route. Faith in God and in the child Jesus was part of their decision to take a possibly more difficult path in order to save a life.

Just as the wise ones once had faith in God’s guiding star, we too maintain a faith that God is guiding us. While we may not always see a brightness in the sky, especially those of us who live in places where stars are not visible, we know that God adapts to the times, giving us new and creative ways of knowing where to go. Maybe God is guiding us with a piece of art, a song, a dance; maybe a roaring river, a calm cloud, a patch of greenery; maybe a still, small voice, an apparition, a burning bush. Or maybe none of those things, yet something so particular to our lives that we know it could be nothing other than God. For me it was a rainbow, some evergreens, and a loon many years ago. God gives us signs of God’s faithfulness just as our worship and praise are our signs of faithfulness to God.

I invite you to join me in a brief prayer:

God, when we converge in Albuquerque this weekend, let us feel Your guiding presence. Let us have faith in You that we too may follow a path to something extraordinary. God, allow us to change, and be changed by, the people around us as You work through us ensures it. So let us hold fast to our faithfulness this weekend, that Your love, compassion, and renewal make us a holy presence for one another.

Amen.

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