Our response to prevenient grace
By Steven Scheid
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
–– Jeremiah 29:11
“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
–– Warren Buffett
It might seem obvious that there is a correlation between the scripture and Buffett’s observation.
Have you thought about your response to prevenient grace? The Book of Discipline defines prevenient grace as “the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any, and all, of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God. . .”
You are the recipient of countless gifts, and God asks you to use those gifts to help establish a brighter future for successive generations.
We have many challenges facing our families, communities, congregations, and world: climate change; COVID-19; inflation; church split; BSA bankruptcy; and a decreased number of young people involved in church.
Never-the-less, God has plans to give you hope and a future.
As the body of Christ, we follow God's guidance to act today. We are the ones called to plant the seeds that will be the trees of tomorrow.
There is a cost for a better future. Someone must gather or buy the seed. Someone must plant it. Someone must water it. Someone must tend to the young plant.
Someone else will later climb in the branches. Someone else will enjoy the fruit. Someone else will sit in its shade.
Are you willing to be the one who brings the seed? Will you tend to the young plants?
You are a co-worker with God to help establish the prevenient grace to be received by the next generation.
“The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.”
– Juliette Gordon Low
Steven Scheid, director of the Center for Scouting Ministry
General Commission on UM Men