Pastoral Letter: Continuing the Journey
Knowing God
As I sat down to write this pastoral letter on Thursday, January 8, I found myself unexpectedly invited into a moment of grace.
The Women’s Bible Study group had welcomed me to their Brunch Fellowship. I arrived later than planned, but no one seemed concerned.
A chair was pulled out. Food was shared. Smiles were freely given.
It was a simple gesture, and yet it stayed with me.
Over plates of food and unhurried conversation, we came to know one another a little more. And in that same space, we found ourselves speaking—quietly, honestly—about how we are coming to know God through Scripture. Not in abstract terms, but through real lives, real questions, real weeks.
That morning did not teach me anything new. It reminded me of something essential.
And so I return to a question I want to hold gently with you:
How are we coming to know God?
Not how we should. Not how we once did. But how, in the midst of our actual lives, are we turning our attention?
In Scripture, knowing God is rarely described in terms of mastery.
It sounds more like orientation—a turning of the heart, a lifting of the eyes.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
(Psalm 121:1–2, NRSV)
I do not hear urgency in these words. I hear recognition. Eyes lifted.
Memory restored. Creation itself becomes a reminder of the One who gives help.
Some come to know God this way—by noticing the world God has made
and allowing wonder to become prayer.
Others remain close to Scripture, not rushing through it, but lingering.
“Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1:2, NRSV)
The word meditate here does not suggest efficiency. It suggests repetition, patience, and return. Words spoken softly enough to be carried. Knowing God, I am learning, is less about understanding everything and more about staying close.
Still others come to know God by returning to prayer again and again—
not only when life feels heavy, but because God is worthy of our attention.
“Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:17, NRSV)
“And even Jesus, before the day began in earnest, withdrew to pray.”
(Mark 1:35)
These are not techniques. They are ways of making room.
As I think back to that Thursday morning, I realize that what I witnessed at the brunch table was not simply hospitality. It was attentiveness. Scripture opened. Lives shared. God recognized in one another’s stories.
No one was trying to arrive at a conclusion. We were simply present—and God was near.
And so I find myself praying—for myself, and for all of us in the Simsbury UMC family.
That each of us, in our own lives, would be given the grace to know God personally—not perfectly, but honestly.
That in small groups, through shared Scripture and shared stories, we would learn to notice God together—listening more than explaining, encouraging one another along the way.
And that, as a whole church, gathered in worship, we would continue to be shaped not by what we accomplish, but by whom we attend to.
I pray that knowing God would come first among us—quietly shaping our culture and our identity. Not as a slogan, but as a shared instinct. A way of turning back, again and again, to the One who is already turned toward us.
As this journey continues, another question begins to surface for me:
If this is where we are turning our attention, where, then, are we rooted?
Next week, we will reflect together on what it means to be Rooted in Christ—how this turning toward God finds its grounding in a life held by grace.
For now, this is enough for this step: to notice where our attention has been going, and to gently turn it back.
May grace meet you in that turning, and may peace rest upon your home
and upon every place where your life unfolds.
With you on the journey,
DH