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Enough

Pastor Matthew Best
2 min readSep 8, 2021

It’s really easy to be down. The world makes it easy. Just observe what is shared. Observe what others are paying attention to. Observe what draws attention. Conflict, death, destruction, separation, power, etc. None of this is new.

I’m reading a book that traces some history and what is amazing is that the people in the 1700’s in America faced the same conflict, fights, and destructive tendencies as we face today. Not much change. Sure, the topic of dispute might be different, but the arguments, the desire to control and to destroy opponents, the scapegoating and the acting out in violence for those that don’t comply, the separating from others — it’s all the same.

Humanity is seems has little desire to grow and learn in order to change and be transformed. We’re much more comfortable that way — we get to lie to ourselves and believe that we are in control.

It’s as if the apple from the Garden of Eden is offered to society in each generation. And we gladly choose thinking that this time it will be different. But it’s not.

We think we need more. We think there is not enough. We claim certain words, but don’t actually understand them, or come up with different definitions for them in order to spin them for our own desires. We aren’t interested in God’s shalom. It would mean giving up too much control. The reality is that we don’t even know what we are rejecting. So we keep searching.

But the answer is right there in front of us and inside of us. Shalom. It’s about wholeness, completeness, and…

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Pastor Matthew Best
Pastor Matthew Best

Written by Pastor Matthew Best

My name is Matthew Best. I’m an ELCA (Lutheran) pastor who attempts to translate church and churchy stuff into everyday language.

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