Page 135 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 23
P. 135

The third conversion (to the world) speaks of loving the created world and
        its consistent signposts back towards God. Werner is clear that God made
        all of crea�on and therefore its design and purpose is perpetually tangible.
        Par�cularly, Werner urges four things. First, to no�ce how imperfec�ons
        aren’t pleasant and invoke our longing for sa�sfac�on and beauty. Second,
        people’s longing for inclusion, acceptance and love points to good
        creaturely need. Third, striving and searching demonstrates the rich
        purpose we were designed to fulfill. Fourth, gi�s and fulfillment illuminate
        the goodness of what God is about and what he has prepared for us.
        Cri�cally, through these four reali�es we can learn to accept the world as it
        is, naming the tensions, and learning what they expose about us, rather
        than just trying to intellectually wrestle ideas of God to the ground hoping
        they produce faith. It is the real world a�er all. God didn’t make or put us in
        a ‘spiritual only’ world. Life with its longings is interwoven—they make
        sense. The ques�on is, can our ‘hard thoughts’ about God that we learn
        from specific experiences and people s�ll hold in the light of all of life’s
        complexi�es? O�en our thoughts are expanded or challenged if we dare
        look at life on its holis�c terms. Life with others and engaged in new ac�vity
        teaches us new things. Are we willing to explore it all?

        When loving engagement and diverse earthly reality bumps into
        precondi�oned ‘hard thoughts about God’, the hard thoughts may actually
        be challenged. Of course, hard thoughts can be ra�fied if the community or
        the life lived is bound in myopic or misguided narra�ves. Will we dare to
        hold truth next to community, community in the world, and the world
        against truth and no�ce how the three fold conversions might intertwine,
        and experien�ally and deeply teach us ‘good thoughts about God’. Pray with
        me for a moment, “Father, show us yourself in your words, your people, and
        your world, that we might have ‘good thoughts’ about you that enliven us
        to invite ‘good thoughts’ in others. Amen.”



























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