Has God ever spoken to you?
\nHave you ever seen a sign?
\nHeard a voice?
\nMet God in a dream?<\/p>\n

As I was finishing up my senior year of high school, I was kind of a mess. I could not figure out where I wanted to go to college, and my indecision was creating a lot of anxiety. I worried that if I made the wrong choice it would affect everything from that point on in my life.
\nI had this portable filing box filled with folders and acceptance letters and brochures and applications and I was overwhelmed by it all.
\nBut one afternoon, I found myself driving home from a youth event and I knew\u2026.
\nLike a light bulb turning on above my head\u2026
\nI knew that I was going to Simpson College.
\nNever mind that it wasn\u2019t even one of the schools in my folders or that I hadn\u2019t even applied yet.
\nIt just came to me and felt like everything was suddenly right with the world.<\/p>\n

The word Epiphany means \u201can appearance or manifestation\u201d and the twelfth day after Christmas we celebrate how God\u2019s love became manifest in human form
\nAnd we remember all of the people who first experienced this revelation of good news: the shepherds in the fields, Mary and Joseph, and the wise men from the East.<\/p>\n

I keep thinking about how God acted and spoke and moved and showed up in the lives of these totally unrelated people from different background and realities.
\nSome of them might not even have known the God of the Israelites.
\nBut through dreams and signs and nudges and messengers, God showed up in their lives.
\nAs the prophet, Isaiah, cried out\u2026
\nArise! Shine! For your light has come\u2026 though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the Lord will shine upon you\u2026 Nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning radiance. (60:1-3)
\nNot just the faithful people of God would be drawn near, but nations! Kings! Strangers! Unbelievers!<\/p>\n

As Matthew tells us, it wasn\u2019t simply a star in the sky that drew the magi to Bethlehem.
\nThey recognized that the star itself was a sign, a message of something bigger. It was the light of Christ himself, revealed to the entire world, that pulled those magi over mountains and deserts and seas to the countryside surrounding Jerusalem.
\nBefore they even knew who he would become or what it meant for their lives, this epiphany, appearance, manifestation, changed their lives.
\nThey felt a nudge to move, to act, to respond.
\nAnd they did.<\/p>\n

When John Wesley talked about the grace that transforms our lives, he started out by talking about prevenient grace.
\nThe grace that goes before us.
\nThe grace that shows up in the lives of people before they even know who God is.
\nPrevenient grace is why we baptize little babies.
\nIt was the neighbor who reached out to invite you to come to church.
\nIt was website you stumbled across when you were looking for a new faith home.
\nIt was the faithful actions of your parents and grandparents that laid a foundation for you.
\nPrevenient grace is that first nudge.
\nThe invitation.
\nThe awareness of a different kind of possibility.
\nA sign. A star. A word.
\nSomething that shifts.
\nWe don\u2019t always know yet how, or why, or what it means, but it changes us.<\/p>\n

I saw how many of you were drawn out of your homes just a couple of weeks ago to catch a glimpse of that great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sky. While it was possible to see with your naked eye or through binoculars, this particular photo was made available by Greg Hogan. It was taken as a long exposure shot from central Georgia.
\nThis was a once-in-a-lifetime experience\u2026 after all it has been 800 years since these planets appeared so closely.
\nBut I think part of what was so powerful about this experience is that we are hungry for light.
\nWe are hungry for hope.
\nWe are hungry for just a glimmer of possibility and joy.
\nWe find ourselves at the start of a new year, and yet still in the midst of a pandemic.
\nOur world, feels kind of bleak right now.
\nBut so it was at the time of Jesus\u2019 birth and in the time of Isaiah.
\nForces of death and violence, power and pride lurked around every corner.
\nThey knew the despair of exile and occupation.
\nThey knew isolation and helplessness.
\nBut into their midst, Isaiah heard God\u2019s call:
\n\u201cArise! Shine! Lift up your Eyes!\u201d
\nIn the midst of everything that is going wrong, LOOK!
\nLook for those glimmers of grace.
\nThose indications of hope.
\nThose moments of possibility.
\nPay attention to the invitation\u2026
\nSee what God is doing all around you\u2026
\nThe magi in the East recognized that this star was leading them on a journey into the unknown. And they chose to follow the star that led them to Jesus.<\/p>\n

This Epiphany, in the midst of everything happening in our world that feels bleak and difficult, I want to invite you to get up. To shine. To pay attention.
\nI want to invite you on a journey.
\nFor the last few years on this Sunday, we have come forward to draw star words.
\nEach star came with a word, an intention, a little nudge from God\u2026 something to pay attention to in the coming year.
\nThis year, rather than each drawing our own words, we are going to follow the stars together.
\nWe are going to take time each Sunday to focus on how a few star words speak into our lives.
\nHow they call us to go deeper.
\nLive more faithfully.
\nGrow in our discipleship.
\nAnd just like the magi, I want to invite you to not only be willing to offer your gifts with God\u2026 but I want to invite you to be open to what God might be giving to you in this journey.<\/p>\n

You know, when I had that epiphany to go to Simpson College, I had no clue what God had in store for me.
\nHeck, Simpson didn’t even have a meteorology department and that was what I intended to study.
\nBut I opened myself to the possibilities and how I could best serve God and just look where I ended up.
\nIt was all because I allowed myself to pay attention to those nudges and I decided to take a risk and follow them.<\/p>\n

Whether we are new to this faith or we have been coming to church for nearly a century\u2026 God is still shining in your life.
\nGod is still guiding you.
\nGod is still speaking\u2026 nudging\u2026 showing up\u2026
\nGod is still creating a new thing in you\u2026.
\nRenewing you\u2026
\nTransforming you\u2026
\nSo that every one of us might become more and more like Christ.<\/p>\n

Friends, a star is shining in the sky.
\nIn a world that is bleak and frustrated and tired and worn out, there is a glimmer of possibility.
\nOf something new.
\nUnknown.
\nAnd if you open your life up to it\u2026
\nIf you take one step\u2026 and then another\u2026
\nIf you bring along some friends\u2026
\nIf you let that nudge work in your life\u2026
\nIt just might change everything.<\/p>\n

May it be so\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Has God ever spoken to you? Have you ever seen a sign? Heard a voice? Met God in a dream? As I was finishing up my senior year of high school, I was kind of a mess. I could not figure out where I wanted to go to college, and my indecision was creating a…<\/span><\/p>\n

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