It’s complicated.

Let’s face it. Relationships are complicated. We…and, yes, that means you and I…bring a potpourri of experiences, feelings, and failures into every interaction. My mother used to call it our “sack of rocks.” We have a history. In some cases, that history has nothing to do with our current circumstance or the people with which we are currently interacting. However, the sights, sounds and smells of our current conditions reach into the depths of our memories, both real and constructed, awakening thoughts and feelings that seem to come out of nowhere in particular, influencing our interaction with others.

It’s complicated.

It sometimes gets messy.

It can often be painful.

Jesus wades right into this complicated, messy, and painful existence and, with promise and persistence, begins to flesh out a prayer that includes the phrasing: “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Let’s be honest. The complicated, messy, and painful way we relate to one another can be more than a little discouraging. At times, we can find ourselves ready and willing to throw up our hands…throw in the towel…raise the white flag or surrender…and walk away.

Into those moments, the Lord ALWAYS speaks. Are you hearing Him? Today, we need to hear Him. It is in hearing Him that we will find the courage to lean in and press on.

Hear, the Word of the Lord.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:4-10 (NASB)