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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion February 23, 2006 Foolish Consistency |
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Frontline Devotion for Thursday, February 23, 2006 by Anne B. Crawford
God’s promises are sure. That is the point Paul makes in today’s passage from 2 Corinthians. In this chapter Paul is explaining why he first promised and then later did not come to visit the church in Corinth. He wanted the church to be perfectly clear that God is consistent in His love and His promises.
Consistency is defined as a harmonious uniformity or agreement among things or parts. In baking terms, it connotes the property of holding together and retaining shape. I like that second definition. In it, I see God holding us together and retaining us in the shape of Jesus. But somewhere in my head runs a quote about consistency that isn’t so favorable. It comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 2nd Essay on Self Reliance and goes ““A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
While God’s constancy and promises are a precious gift to us, our own consistency can be trouble, if we’re not living our lives in conformance to God’s promises and direction. Our consistency (consistently sinning) gets us into all kinds of difficult life situations in which we really do need to turn to and depend on God’s great promises of love and forgiveness. Notice the order in which I mention God’s promises. I think that’s important. God does not promise to love us if/when we seek forgiveness; He starts out with loving us first. That first promise of His loves is the greatest, most consistent promise of all. Some would say that such love is foolish, given the trouble we present to God. We are madly willful and selfish, we can’t seem to get the hang of loving our neighbors as ourselves, much less loving God as we ought and we keep turning to anything/anyone but God to find happiness and fulfillment. But God does love us, enough to send his son Jesus to secure our salvation and guarantee us a place with Him in heaven.
Loving God and Father, thank you that your promises are sure and that your love for me is constant and ever present. Help me to be more constant and consistent in reflecting your love to others in daily life. Amen.
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