One morning a few years ago, my then 3-year-old son, Dominic, came running in from outside. His hands full of dandelion heads he excitedly poured them in my lap while telling me that these flowers are called daisies and there are a lot of them growing in the back yard, and they used to be giraffes that died and came back as daisies, and they came back because they wanted to grow in our back yard because they wanted a little boy to pick them to show his mommy and daddy how much he loves them.  Wow. And here I thought they were just weeds.

It's amazing what a little bit of perspective can do for our lives. In the midst of our daily routines and challenges we often selfishly start to look at things wondering - "how is this impacting me?" and "what's in it for me?" and "why is this so hard?" But I think our readings today challenge us to look at the world the way Dominic did this morning - to him a simple weed was all part of a bigger plan that was put into place to give him a way to show others he loves them.

How different would your life be if you looked at every situation that way? How is God using the situation you are in, no matter how hard, to give you an opportunity to show your love? And how is God using our life situations to show us he loves us? How has he done this in the past?

I think both our first reading and our Gospel hint at salvation history. Salvation History is a study of theology that seeks to understand the personal redemptive activity of God within human history to affect his eternal saving intentions. To say it in a simpler way - the study of how God makes covenants in this world to save us and show us he loves us.

In our first reading we are hearing God make this promise to Abraham - a promise of salvation not only for him but for all of his many descendants. And in our Gospel Jesus outlines for the Jews that the one who came before Abraham was God, known as I AM. While Jesus tries to outline the promise of salvation for the Jews - they will never see death if they believe in him - they are too focused on disputing and arguing with him. They can't see it. Jesus is trying to show them how Abraham was a part of this salvation history and how he is ultimately this next step in salvation history.  When he tries to explain that he is part of God the father's plan to bring salvation to our broken, frustrating, selfish world, they feel threatened and try to stone him. But regardless of their acceptance of it, the plan for salvation has already been set into motion.  Whether they see it or not God's love is there for them.

And God's love is there for us as well. So today when you are going through the motions of your day and you feel stuck, you feel frustrated, you feel tired, look out at the dandelions in your yard. Maybe they aren't just another weed you have to pluck. Maybe they are a sign of how God uses this world to show us how much he truly does love us.

- AJ Grimm