Ordinary Time 
Pause
Faithfulness can seem impossible sometimes. There are so many things God hopes for us to do and not do. We wonder how we can possibly live up to the letter of the law.
But when we really dig down, the spirit of the law is not so difficult. God loves us and empowers us to love back to God and out to others. That’s it: love is the law.
Listen
The Lord your God will help you succeed in everything you do—in your own fertility, your livestock’s offspring, and your land’s produce—everything will be great! Because the Lord will once again enjoy doing good things for you just as he enjoyed doing them for your ancestors, and because you will be obeying the Lord your God’s voice, keeping his commandments and his regulations that are written in this Instruction scroll, and because you will have returned to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your being.
Deuteronomy 30:9-10
Think
Do you remember the Staples easy button? If you’re out of paper clips, the copier jams, or you have a sticky note emergency, just press the red button, and like magic your problems are solved.
God sounds a little like the easy button in this passage, ready to “help you succeed in everything.” It can be pretty appealing to think of God like a holy vending machine ready to grant our wishes. But in this case we need to read all the instructions: God will help us succeed in everything. (“Awesome!”) God enjoys doing good things for us. (“Sweet!”) Because we will be obeying the Lord’s voice. (“Ahhh . . . the catch.”)
God treasures the chance to help us thrive but not at just any ol’ thing. God puts muscle behind our dreams when our dreams are rooted in God’s commandments and we turn to God “with all our heart and being.” When our hearts are in the right place, we don’t work alone but with the backing and power of our all-loving God.
Shelli Latham
Pray
God of might and mercy, help me remember your laws of love and to turn to you with my whole heart. And help me to trust that when I am about making your dreams for the world come true that it may not be easy, but you will work in and through and for me. Amen.
Go
It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have. The alphabet is fine, but it’s what we do with it that matters most. Making words like “friend” and “love.” That’s what really matters.
Mr. Rogers
Today, may you do something that matters, trusting that you’re wrapped in the arms of our gracious God, whose number one rule is “Love!”
