Listen

God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, you will no longer call her Sarai. Her name will now be Sarah. I will bless her and even give you a son from her. I will bless her so that she will become nations, and kings of peoples will come from her.”

Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He said to himself, Can a 100-year-old man become a father, or Sarah, a 90-year-old woman, have a child?

Genesis 17:15-17

Think

A friend tells about a youth minister who was baptizing a teenager one Sunday and accidentally called him by the wrong name in the water: “I baptize you, Scott, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The young man came up out of the water and whispered to the youth minister: “Is that my new Christian name?”

That was a fair question because when we commit to follow God’s ways, we do start fresh. Most of us don’t get new names like Abram and Sarai did, but all of us get the same kind of new beginning. New beginnings don’t have road maps like our old paths do, and so it takes a special kind of faith to embark on such a life journey. Even if, like the newly named Abraham, we fall down laughing at the thought of it.

Mark Wingfield

Pray

God of new beginnings, create a clean heart in me and set me upon a fresh pathway with you. I will follow in faith. Amen.

Go

Go, empowered by the real truth of God’s promises and commit to be a truth-teller yourself.

Go in peace, live in truth.