Friends,

I’m writing this a few days after observing Martin Luther King Day (better late than never).  Today I came across a line of one of MLK’s prayers: “Use me, God.  Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”  I’m continually struck by his wisdom as one who responded so fully to God’s call upon his life.  As prophets often do, MLK also paid the price for carrying such reconciliation within himself.  

Richard Rohr calls akin prophets “followers of Jesus Christ, [who] are the leaven, the salt, the remnant, the mustard seed that God uses to transform the world.”  These are the ones who are truly awake, the ones who enter “into heaven much earlier and thus can see things in a transcendent, whole, and healing way.”  In my view, MLK joined the ranks of saints in this life who are born again, born from above, or born anew, depending on the Bible translation you use.  Christian saints, per Richard Rohr, include all of us who “wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one.”  Rohr goes on to say that those who are awake now don’t “feel superior to anyone else; they just knew they had been let in on a big divine secret, and they wanted to do their part in revealing it.”

I wonder what God reveals to us when we pray similarly:  Use me, God.  Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.  I suspect that as we identify our God-given gifts, that we too will awaken more fully to our own callings.

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi