A common and false distinction is pitting religion against reason. While faith is trusting God beyond our capacity for a complete and total understanding, it is a grave mistake to abandon all rational processes as we walk a path of rigorous and righteous discipleship. The God who has invited and called us to faith has also gifted us with powerful minds to experience the world and to try and make some sense out of it. As one old preacher said, "We are called to be fools for Christ, but we should not be
damn
fools along the way!" In the Gospels, Jesus tells us to "love the Lord our God with all our whole heart, soul, mind and strength." All that is within us is offered to God through the wholeness of thought, careful expression, and hopefully, more consistent practice. This Sunday we seek to balance our lives with attention to becoming a sincerely loving, reflectively thinking and faithfully experiencing people of God as we live with a reasoned faith sufficient for the challenges of our day.