The way it always was
is no longer good enough
Funny how inspiration strikes when you least expect it.
How when you’re not looking for it, or don’t know exactly where to look, ‘BOOM,’ it’s there.
I’ve often heard our Senior Pastor Valarie Englert and others speak of flipping the Bible open to a random page and finding just the right word or phrase in scripture to illustrate a point or a message or a devotional.
Well, that’s sorta what happened to me.
Except it wasn’t the Bible. It was a song.
Brave by Nicole Nordeman.
(I once sang harmony on the chorus of this song with a young lady who was a far more gifted vocalist than I.)
An accomplished contemporary Christian music artist, Nordeman was inspired to write Brave as she was overcoming doubts about being a good parent to her first child.
The title comes from the bravery God gave her to stand up and assert herself.
Amazingly, the chorus could have been written for the challenge we now face, best summed up I think by author and poet Sonya Renee Taylor:
Normal no longer exists.
But we are being given a new opportunity.
One that takes courage.
One that takes bravery, backed by the knowledge that God is in our corner.
Or as Nordeman sings:
So long, status quo,
I think I just let go
You make me wanna be brave
The way it always was
is no longer good enough
You make we wanna be brave
First Reflections 