{"id":5058,"date":"2015-02-27T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=5058"},"modified":"2015-02-27T08:00:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T13:00:08","slug":"ebrethren-2-27-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2015\/02\/27\/ebrethren-2-27-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Love for all creation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Unit<\/a>
Unit 308 prepares to love all of God’s creation at
Brethren Volunteer Service orientation.
Photo by Brethren Volunteer Service staff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A reflection by Emily Tyler<\/p>\n

<\/em>Vitality. Intergenerational. Intercultural. Transformation. Hope.<\/p>\n

These are some of the buzz words that came up during our staff gathering last week. These words surrounded our discussion of\u00a0Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN)<\/a> and the current situation in our church. While comparing our time together in discussion and reflection with Psalm 36, I could not help but notice the parallel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe God-rebel\u2026 has no regard for God.\u2026 When he\u2019s loose on the streets, nobody\u2019s safe. He plays with fire and doesn\u2019t care who gets burned. \/ God\u2019s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, his purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness, nothing gets lost; not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks\u201d (Psalm 36:1-6, The Message).<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a stark contrast here: the terror and destruction in our world and God\u2019s meteoric, all-surpassing love. It\u2019s a lot to take in.<\/p>\n

What I find interesting about these verses is the largeness of God\u2019s love\u2014spanning from meteoric to oceanic, and everything in between\u2014and letting no person or animal slip through the cracks. This is professed directly after such evil is described. The enormity of God\u2019s love even covers those who do evil.<\/p>\n

In our culture, we are taught that life is a reward that we earn\u2014through doing the right deeds, buying the right things, hanging out with the right people. Psalm 36 suggests otherwise. God\u2019s astronomical love is a gift. It\u2019s just given to us. But this gift of life and of God\u2019s love is sometimes experienced along with great resistance, just as Psalm 36 shares.<\/p>\n

It seems natural to pray for our own. We pray for the Chibok girls, our EYN sisters and brothers, and our Muslim sisters and brothers with whom we collaborate. We pray for our families, our church leaders, and those with whom we share in ministry.<\/p>\n

But do we pray for Boko Haram? Pray for their mothers and fathers? Do we pray for our enemies and those who mean us harm? They, too, are part of God\u2019s creation. I believe this is an expression of God\u2019s love. Loving even those who \u201cplay with fire and don\u2019t care who gets burned.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we struggled and engaged in conversation last week, I was filled with great hope. Just as our EYN sisters and brothers move forward through their current struggle, so also do we press on, seeking to express God\u2019s love to all of creation.<\/p>\n

Emily Tyler is coordinator of Workcamps<\/a> and Brethren Volunteer Service<\/a> Recruitment. Support this and many other ministries of the Church of the Brethren that share God’s love at\u00a0www.brethren.org\/give<\/a> .
\n<\/em>
\n(Read this issue of eBrethren<\/a>)\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reflection by Emily Tyler Vitality. Intergenerational. Intercultural. Transformation. Hope. These are some of the buzz words that came up during our staff gathering last week. These words surrounded our discussion of\u00a0Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN) and the current situation in our church. While comparing our time together in discussion and reflection with Psalm 36,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,357,1228],"class_list":["post-5058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebrethren","tag-brethren-volunteer-service","tag-ebrethren","tag-workcamps"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}