New and Great Blessings

“When Yahweh says, ‘It is done,’ we can trust that all things are made new, most especially our lives,” wrote Wen-Ling Lai in Disciplines 2022, page 162. “The challenge to us all is to be ready and willing to trust and accept with confidence the new and great blessings God offers us.”

She reminds me of what Jan Seals, with whom it was my honor to be in ministry at all levels in our denomination to people of all ages and stages for over a decade, would tell her Sunday school youth —

When you pray, try this: unfold your hands and hold them out in front of you.

Palms up. Offer to God everything you’ve been carrying.

Palms down. Release all that.

Palms up, hand empty, ready receive whatever God has in store for you.

— Roll together what these two sisters of ours are telling us, and be “ready and willing to trust and accept with confidence the new and great blessings God offers us” today.