ACT 3: ROOTS

MARCH 4, 2022

We can live somewhere for a very long time and never really put our roots down there. What does it look like to get more deeply rooted in our home community? Today's Act will help you to explore ways of generously investing in your neighborhood.

Go LOCAL. Find an excuse to make a local connection today. Take a quick detour to a small local shop or, if the local supermarket is more your thing, take extra time at the checkout to connect with the person who serves you. Learn their name, ask them how they are, or simply thank them for their help. Try to remember their face for next time. In other words, plant a tiny seed of community today.

Chances are, somewhere in your community right now there is a voluntary group desperate for help. What a perfect way to get rooted! Find out about groups in your area.

The most revolutionary ideas are usually answers to a simple problem or a need. Take a long, hard look at your community, and see if you can find a gap to fill. It might be that social groups for the elderly are needed, or that a youth drop in club would be a benefit. There might be a need for a support group for cancer survivors, or a coffee morning might be needed for single parents. Whatever it might be, take steps today toward identifying something needed.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians to remind them of an important truth: Just because we cannot see why things are the way they are right now, a day will come when we will see and understand fully. Nothing catches God unaware.

We often acknowledge that God knows us better than we know ourself. We embrace the notion that God sees the beautiful creation full of potential and hope in us. God is constantly bringing restoration and renewal to each of us. Helping us put our roots down in him. I wonder, could the same be true of the world around us? Our neighborhoods? Our communities? That God’s plan of restoration and renewal is already underway and we are invited to become rooted in our neighborhoods so that God’s good plan can unfold?

We confess that God is at work to restore all things to beauty and perfection. Our response is to rest in this hope and wait in faith, and offer ourselves for God’s purposes and He will make all things new!