Disquieting Truth

I had to read and re-read today's passage, 'A New Creation' because I usually want something nice and solid to hang onto, to make my own, and to be able to cling to when life becomes very difficult. The author brings up the disquieting paradoxes that Jesus often made known to us - such as those from the Sermon on the Mount - and how we often find ourselves being in the group that Jesus criticized. I want to be in the good group, the one he favored over the other group. The author suggests that when we settle back and become comfortable with how things are, we are not in the good group - that we should be "irritated by satisfaction and self-content in ourselves as well as in others" because we know that "something great is coming" - that we "believe that there will never be a moment in our lives in which we can rest in the supposition that there is nothing left to do." I find comfort in knowing that I can do my best to do my part in making this world a better place than the one I found - to best of my ability - and that God is in charge, not me. I am a mere human who fails to do the right thing many times. It is my responsibility to try to do the right thing. I don't understand many of the things that happen in God's world. The mystery of it all is part of this experience of being alive. What I do have to cling to is faith that, in the end, I will be ok as long as I believe, I just believe.