What If?

What if? What if I were "king of the world?" What if I were God? What if GA had approved a different overture? What if our church was.....?

We love to day dream "what ifs." It is a way to bleed off excess anxiety. In the last couple years God has been moving more to being "present in the now." This is a spiritual discipline for me because my mind and imagination tend to wander to the "what ifs." Becoming more fully present to the "now" is to become more aware, however.

General Assembly didn't go the way I wanted. As I prayed through the possible scenarios during the week, I found myself realizing that certain amendments would mean more or less "work" for me and our staff. Realizing that, I began to pray through the alternatives and realized that we are a church full of potential opportunities. The future began to emerge in the present. The "it is what it is" may be a reality check. But to enter the "is what it is" is a journey into tomorrow. Since that statement may not compute on the "logic" screen, let me tell you something that happened last night toward the end of General Assembly.

One of our Executive Presbyter colleagues sent a note to all the middle governing body attendees inviting them to our tiny "lounge" for prayer. Yep. Over sixty men and women crammed into a tiny room and prayed over our presbyteries, our members, and ourselves as we go home to interpret the proposed changes in our constitution (www.pcusa.org/ga218). Yet in the midst of the conversation was a sense of peace, not complaint. Over and over my colleagues expressed faith that God is with us, we are still God's church, that God is doing something new that we don't yet see, that our task is to be faithful in ministry and leadership. These affirmations were in our conversation and then in our prayers. It is a gift to be included in these Godly men and women, our Pittsburgh staff among them.

In the "now" moment of a sucker punch of a vote that we didn't see coming, God was there to hold us and comfort us - and to show us a future, that like Abraham, we can't yet see. I love the description of Abraham's journey into God's call written in Hebrews, "Abraham set out to the new land not knowing where he was going" (my paraphrase). But Abraham, like us, entered the "now" of the call to faithfulness and found God's footsteps in the desert sands in front of him. We will too.

God has called us as a presbytery to be fully present in the "now." Now we are God's called people. Now we are the Body of Christ. Now we are God's provisional demonstration of God's desire for all humanity. Now we are loved. Now we are still bound as Presbyterians to one another as we enter the deep waters of Jordan's stormy crossing. In that "now," is the parting of the waters. Now.

Bob Anderson
Interim Pastor to the Presbytery of Pittsburgh