Many Sundays seem to be nonstop activity for me. I guess it’s the hazard of being a pastor/chaplain, of working in an environment where other’s needs can trump my own. Today, other than an after-church lunch with friends, I only needed to do a short errand, buy gas and go home.

Except… I took a wrong turn, ended up on the opposite side of a neighborhood that I planned to go to for groceries, and ended up on a winding, no berms middle-of-nowhere road. It looked like I was in “West Virginia” but my GPS informed me that I-270 was really not that far away. I could try and turn around. Or I could just go with the flow. It was not the most direct route, but I’d get there eventually. I opted to just keep on driving.

So as I drove “the long way home” I reflected on Todd’s sermon this morning. The exhortation to live out that “God is Love” — and how that might be reflected tonight and tomorrow. The reminder that God’s love is not discriminatory; God does not refuse to love people who do not love God back. That God’s love cost something — it was not “free.” And how might it “cost” me to love someone that I find hard to love…

I usually need a billboard moment like that to remind me that I’m here for more than my own agenda. That God has plans and ways for me to be used… whether or not I’m ready to be used by God is another issue. And that no matter what, even when it’s hard… I’m still loved. I’m still love-able.

Yet deep down, way down to my toes, I know God is there. I am confident that God cares and hears. And in that, I have such peace.