Welcome to the Gift of Renewal
We are renewed by so many things: nature, each other, memory, music, play, solitude, silence, and – of course – our faith. Through small groups, calls to justice work, worship, caring for one another, covenant and accountability, our faith breathes new life into us.
But it also renews us in a way that often goes unnoticed: through questions! Or to be more precise, our faith has a sneaky way of changing our lives by changing the questions we ask.
Questions around renewal are a great example of this.
For instance, the “renewal questions” lifted up by our secular culture revolve mainly around health (Are you drinking enough water? Are you getting enough sleep?) and work/life balance (Are you making enough time for family, play and rest?). Those are fine questions, but they only go so deep and push us so far.
Here’s where our faith comes in. It enters the scene and in effect says, “Hey, look over here. There’s a box with an entirely different set of renewal questions that nobody’s opened yet.”
Questions like:
Are you sure it’s your body that’s tired, or could it be your soul?
What if “time away” isn’t about restoring yourself in order to return to work, but rather
making space to decide if it’s time to re-imagine what your “true work” really is?
Is it time to renew your responsibility to those who will come after you?
Is it time to renew your commitment to carry on the work of those who came before?
What if you saw your daily living and loving as an opportunity (even a calling) to renew
others’ faith in humanity?
Could it be that continual self-improvement is not the path to renewal, but instead
compassionate acceptance of who you already are?
And those are just the questions sitting on top of the pile!
So friends, this month, let’s renew and refresh the questions we ask. Let’s remind ourselves that, indeed, we change our lives by changing our questions. And, maybe most importantly, let’s each ask ourselves, “What renewing question do I want to take with me into the summer?”
