A Devotion for Listening to the Mustn'ts

It’s Tuesday evening in Lakeland and the rain has just cleared, bringing a humid but cleansing feel to the air. The sun breaks through the parting clouds just in time for a beautiful sunset.  The swans take graceful bows on the lakes.

Today marked the beginning of the Florida Annual Conference 2019, the yearly meeting for both clergy and laity representatives of all of the churches, extension ministries and boards of the United Methodist Churches in the Florida Conference.

Over the next 4 days we will gather for conversation, worship and, decision-making. This is holy conferencing, central to who we are as United Methodist, believing as we do that our connection to one another makes us stronger.

If you hadn’t heard, the climate in the UMC is a fraught one; reactions to this year’s decision at General Conference have tensions at an all-time high. There are hurting hearts, wounded spirits, and a heaviness that permeates.  

There is hope, certainly. But it seems faraway, across mountains and treacherous terrain and compromises too great to stake.

Last night, as I read to my kids before bed, they asked to read from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. After choosing some of their favorite silly poems (currently: Melinda Mae Who Ate the Whale and Jimmy Jet and His TV Set), we turned to Listen to the Mustn’ts.

I read the words like a benediction falling on their wet-from-the-bath hair, their pajama-ed limbs tucked up like roots beneath them:

Listen to the Mustn'ts, child,
listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts,
the Impossibles, the Won'ts.
Listen to the Never Haves,
then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child,
Anything can be.

On the other side of this Annual Conference, beyond this storm season, after the divorce or the death or the fight, God reminds us to listen close:

Anything can happen, child,
Anything can be.

We have heard the mustnt’ts, the don’ts and shouldn’ts. The Impossibles and Won’ts have had their say. The Never Haves have claimed victory over the narrative.

But God, the one who has created, redeemed and restored, this God who made the foundations of the universe, draws us close and whispers that anything, ANYTHING is possible. Anything can be.

Unity despite all evidence to the contrary. A home rebuilt from shambles. A life restored from the brink of death.

Are we dreaming big enough to believe?

‘Jesus looked hard at them and said, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.”’ – Matthew 19:26 The Message

With you on the journey,
Chaplain Amy