Sterling Severns Devotional, Devotionals, Life of the Community, Staff

When the Door Doesn’t Budge

When the Door Doesn’t Budge
By Rev. Sterling Severns, Pastor

Life has a way of surprising us with change. One day everything feels familiar, and the next we’re in territory that’s suddenly unrecognizable. It might be a diagnosis we never expected, the loss of a job we thought was secure, or a shift in a relationship we counted on. Or it might be more subtle—realizing that something which once made perfect sense no longer feels like it fits. Moments like these can freeze us in place. We don’t know how to move forward, and we can’t go back. So we wait. And wonder. And wrestle with the weight of it all.

In my own experience, there have been more than a few seasons like this—times when the path ahead felt uncertain, and the world around me felt both familiar and foreign. Everything on the outside may have looked the same, but something inside had shifted. And without exception, each time, it’s taken its toll. The waiting. The weariness. The wondering if anything is actually changing at all. There’s a deep vulnerability in those moments, especially when we’ve asked God for help, when we’ve prayed for direction, healing, peace. We show up to our lives the best we can. Still trying. Still hoping. Still doing our thing. But the silence lingers, and the door we’ve been knocking on stays shut.

The longer we walk in faith, the more we come to see the real change comes not when the door swings open, but when something inside us opens instead. Not suddenly, not dramatically, but slowly, quietly, over time. God doesn’t always remove the stuckness, but God meets us in it, reshaping our hearts, softening the places that have grown hard with fear or frustration. Sometimes, when the exhaustion finally gives way to surrender, we discover that the door was never locked after all. We were just too weary to see how close we already were to grace. We lean against it for support, and somehow, we find ourselves on the other side.

God doesn’t wait for us beyond the threshold. God is with us in the hallway, in the waiting, in the ache. In the quiet work of transformation that begins long before the breakthrough. That is the mystery and mercy of the God who answers, not always by changing our circumstances, but by being unshakably present within them.

So wherever you find yourself this week, whether you’re waiting for the door to open, or wondering if it ever will, may you know you are not alone. May you be reminded that presence itself is a gift, that transformation often begins before we even recognize it, and that grace has a way of meeting us right where we are.

Sterling Severns Devotional, Life of the Community, Taste & See

Pastoral Reflection: Grace at the Start


Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor

This past Sunday, we chose to begin worship at the table. Before prayers or offerings, before much else was said or sung, we paused to share Communion—passing trays from one to another, serving and being served, bread and cup in our hands.

It wasn’t about earning anything, or proving ourselves ready. It was about acknowledging something true before anything else: that grace is given. That God provides. That all of us come hungry in one way or another.

In these tender and challenging days, when so many questions swirl about what comes next, there is something quietly powerful about starting there. To recognize that whatever happens begins not with our certainty or our planning, but with God’s own generosity. That nothing we’re about to do—our singing, our praying, our listening, our giving—creates grace. It simply responds to it.

Passing the bread and cup among us reminded us of our shared dependence. It was a small act of trust: receiving what someone else handed us, offering it in turn. A way of saying we cannot provide for ourselves alone. That God is always the one who moves first, offering what we cannot make ourselves.

For those who would like to reflect more on why this small shift in the order of worship can matter so much, I want to share this thoughtful piece that speaks to it beautifully: Grace at the Start: How Moving Communion Changes Everything.

I keep thinking of these words from Rachel Held Evans that many of us have carried with us:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes.”

–Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

It’s an image worth holding onto.

Because whatever questions we’re asking about the future, whatever uncertainties wait for us beyond the doors of this sanctuary, we begin by acknowledging the grace already given.

And in serving and being served, we remember who we are.

People who are hungry. People who say yes.

People who find, again and again, that God meets us at the table.