A Language of Hope in Thought and Application

I have a message of hope to share with the world tonight or anyone who cares to listen. The Dialect of Praxis was never meant to satiate my ego, it was to be a conversation where theory and practice met – a language of hypothesis and application – of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Perhaps this was presumptuous for a man who needs the grace he so loudly espouses.

Along my journey, I’ve asked a lot of hard questions and many of those questions have been asked of me too. One thing that has stayed consistent in a whirlwind of transitions is the power of belief. I believe in grace with great passion because of who I see when I look in the mirror (a man in need of grace). I’m not always very good at being gracious to people and, “I ask God to help and guide me.” The grace of God, given for you, breaks the chains of this life and the next.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” (Hank Williams). What if heaven isn’t your first thought? I want to see the kingdom of God now and I do, but I don’t always have “ears to hear” and “eyes to see.” If you feel this way, you’re not alone. The power of belief drove me to question how and what I understood about God. The power of belief drove me to deny belief altogether. The power of belief drove me to think through what I hold true, rather than feel it. The power of belief continues to drive me. I came to know an enduring hope through the power of grace, which is beyond my ability or the fullness of my comprehension.

People die, people get sick, people face addictions, people fight depression, people are overtaken by anger, people lose hope, people worry, people question, people deny, people don’t forgive, people are selfish, and people are broken. I love all of these people! I call some of these people family, I call some of these people friends, I call some of these people loved ones, and I call one of them, me.

Friends and strangers, brothers and sisters, friend or foe, God is with you. God is powerful enough to carry your burdens. God knows everything about you at the safest and deepest level. God is good enough to forgive what is done and left undone. “God’s grace is sufficient for you,” “power is made perfect in weakness,” and Christ died, even for you. When I forget to proclaim that into your life (whomever you may be) then this is no dialect. When I forget to practice this belief, then this is not praxis.

I don’t have anything new to say or put into praxis because this one thing, the grace of God, must be declared time and time again because we fall short. The God of the universe died on a cross for you and for me. God is with you, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt; “Our Father in heaven, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven....”