Our whole range of feelings and experiences take on a different dimension - a deep joy - if we are able to share them with others, or if we feel as if we have to experience them alone, which is especially dispiriting. In the arrival of Jesus, God gave the ultimate expression of this empathy, solidarity, and connection. How might we experience more of the thriving of salvation life by sharing with each other what God has first shared with us?

In Advent we celebrate God coming close, and that initiative means a lot in the theme of peacemaking. God moves to enact peace and reconciliation, and so we can expect that peace may often be more about transformation and a new way of being than just calm, stillness, or quiet. God also helps us recognize where there is a balance in disturbing peace, and we should be ready to join in the side of the lowly and outcast so we can be a part of the true, holistic peace of God’s Kingdom.

We can often feel as though having hope is most about how firmly we can focus on a positive outcome in the future. Yet we can also find that the hardest to muster in our most difficult situations that need change and hope the most. Advent helps us to realize that even when things are overwhelmingly challenging and painful, the deepest, most transformational hope can begin with the realization that God joins us in those circumstances, does not reject us because of them, and will go through the full process of change with us.

As Congregationalists, we can learn a lot and take plenty of inspiration from the experiences of our Pilgrim forebears that are commonly remembered at Thanksgiving. While most of us are unlikely to move across continents as part of our faith journeys, we can still relate the ways they discerned how to follow God through a range of challenges in life to our own day to day experiences.

Discerning God’s voice and how our call may fit into what God is doing in the world can be hard to decipher. We may doubt if there’s a place for us unless we have heard something specific enough or feel we are special enough. Scripture shows us that God has made room for everyone to participate in the ongoing movement of the Kingdom with what they have to offer. We can join with that standing invitation rather than worry if we are picked special or not.

We often expect that the only way to be a part of a call from God is to get a very specific word as a very special person. Yet God includes all of us, and inspirational stories of those who were open to following where God might use their talents and interests in small ways to turn into a significant impact can remind us how we all have a place in God’s call to bring salvation life to the world.

Interviews done well can reveal what’s most important to a person, foster connection between people, and perhaps inspire new understandings of each other and the world. A secretive, but vulnerable interview between Jesus and Nicodemus early in Jesus’ ministry was one such encounter, and reminds us all of the importance of seeking and finding new birth into salvation life from Jesus.

Sometimes it feels like we can’t proceed into our lives of faith (or we want to control how others walk with us faith) unless we have really specific, glaring signs from God about what is going on. Much of scripture shows us that God walks with us in faith with less of a list to follow and more of a shared exploration of all God is doing on the foundation of values that can be built upon a number of ways. How can we understand discernment to bring us freedom in following God, rather than fear that holds us back from connection?

Discomfort and challenge are inevitable parts of life, but because they are difficult, we can often have trouble discerning how God is guiding us through them, and even using them for our growth and development. Embracing the experience of wrestling with God can help us experience more closeness with God and learning in our lives of faith.

Wisdom takes time to cultivate, and we may go through a period of fumbling about in all sorts of places trying to find it as given by God, but God has provided outlets in all aspects of life for us to find as we value listening for the Spirit over pride in ourselves.

When God has moved to bring more and more of the world into fellowship with God and each other, it has often yielded mixed reactions and uncertainty for those who already saw themselves as God’s people. It can be an inescapable part of the process that we have seasons of discerning what it “SEEMS” like God is doing. Can we use that to reach out and grow from God’s leading, or are we likely to retreat within ourselves?

In some of our most complicated and painful decisions, there is often a context around us of what “proper and powerful, maybe even religious people are supposed to do.” That may or may not actually align with the deepest, truest values God wants us to discern and strive towards. How do we humbly pursue that, even if it stretches us or costs us in the eyes of others?

Figuring out how best to make choices and move forward in action can be one of the more complicated aspects of life. People of faith generally hope that God’s values will influence their discernment and God may even guide it directly in some way. From even creation and the nature of humanity, God gave building blocks for this, that even in a state of brokenness, we can tap into for the thriving of salvation life.

There are times in life when things get “really real,” and we know we’ll have to adjust to incorporate that into our lives. These tend to be both exciting and challenging - like reaching a new stage of commitment in a relationship or having kids. Our faith can be like that, too, and our human condition will have some reaction of wanting to withdraw from these circumstances, but also wanting to figure out how to step up. How do we find God with us in these situations so we can say together, “OK, let’s go.”?

Our society is experiencing more and more elements of stress and anxiety. We can know God offers grace and peace, but then maybe worry that if we still experience anxiety we are failing in faith and God would abandon us. We can see that God does want to relieve us from these feelings and experiences, but not like someone yelling “just calm down” to make a heated argument worse, but like a companion who empathizes with struggle, and has meaningful ways for going all the way through whatever we experience, good or bad.

God’s gift of new life transforms the way we see the world around us and operate in it. Not only is that a gift for our own experience, but it brings profound transformation to others as we share what God has brought into our lives with others and make room for them to share with us, as well.

There are many groups and situations in our lives that make the question of what it takes to belong and who is an “insider” or an “outsider” a big focus. That can make any of us feel worried or under pressure about being “outsiders,” and thrilled and relieved when we are welcomed as “insiders.” God operates by a unique set of values and definitions for belonging in God’s Kingdom than we see in the world around us most of the time, and we can be encouraged where we have been welcomed to offer welcome to others, too.

Salvation life is an amazing gift of God’s grace, but we can also sometimes benefit from a reminder that it’s not an end point or something to take for granted. There is always more learning and transformation of the fullness of what God is offering that can be pursued - a lot like elite athletes, artists and others tend to always seek out more practice and ways to improve, even after seeming to achieve everything someone would want to.

Like reality show contestants focused on one particular outcome at the expense of almost anything else that might be taken away from an experience, we can sometimes get distracted from God’s values and what God calls worthy by competing priorities and expectations. Joseph and Paul give examples of how staying rooted in God’s metrics helps us experience salvation life in any circumstance.

God doesn’t just give us instructions about life, but actually lives profound values and character, and builds unbelievably gracious relationships with us that embody for us what salvation life is really like. How can we learn from that, and be inspired and empowered by it such that we follow in the same values and love and they redefine who we are, how we operate in the world, and the relationships we have with God and each other?