Salvation. Spiritual Formation series, part 12.

I have a note on the bulletin board above my writing desk that says, simply:

salvation:

deliverence

welfare

prosperity

preservation

safety

flourishing

Wherever these things are present in your life today, there Salvation can be credited, already doing its good work. And wherever they are lacking, count it also as Good.

Because in a life happy-to-the-brim, there is no room for Salvation. A perpetually warm, safe person needs no deliverance. A person who feasts at every meal has no capacity for the well-fare of the Salvation of God. An entirely contented person has no need to receive flourishing.

There is no Salvation unless there is first duress, a need for deliverence.

There is no Salvation unless there is first ill-faring, a need for well-fare.

There is no Salvation unless there is first poverty, a need for prosperity.

There is no Salvation unless there is first rot, a need for preservation.

There is no Salvation unless there is first insecurity, a need for safety.

There is no Salvation unless there is first exhaustion, a need for flourishing.

So wherever you find any of these things in your life today: duress, ill-faring, poverty, rot, insecurity, exhaustion — you can hold out hope. The Salvation of God is coming. It’s on its way. Hold on. And it is already here. Look around you. It is omnipresent, the most ubiquitous Force in the world; it is already leaking in at your seams.