Prayer

Stumbled across this old comic recently and was reminded of the parables we've been studying from Luke 11 and Luke 18.

Learning to Read

“My current project is writing a talk I am to give to the Macon Parish Catholic Women’s Council on the dizzying subject – 'What Is a Wholesome Novel?' I intend to tell them that the reason they find nothing but obscenity in modern fiction is because that is all they know how to recognize.”

Flannery O' Conner

Lifted from the fine folks at Toads Drink Coffee.

Cold Water, Hot Coffee

We talked a lot last Sunday about Christ's call to embrace a broken world; the command to go into the world with his other-worldly kindness, love, grace, and service. But talking about it is one thing. Knowing how to do it is another. Someone shared this poem with me that I think gives a good suggestion. It's called "Cold Water, Hot Coffee" and is written by Ann Weems.

Sometimes that cup of cold water,
turns out to be a cup of hot cofeee,
and what we're asked to do is
to pour it...and to listen.
Sometimes we Christians
in our enthusaism
think we were asked
to save the world,
when what we were asked to do
is to go into it
and tell God's story
to people in need of
some good news.
Aanxious activists forget
that just listening is an act
of compassion.
Driven disciples forget
that just listening is an act
of faithfulness.
Guilty givers forget
that just listening is an act
of stewardship.
Since we church people
have a tendancy to be
driven and anxious and guilt-ridden,
perhaps we shoul
read the directs again
and pour a cup of hot coffee
and listen
in his name.

For me, there's sweet relief in knowing that I don't have to "fix" everything. Listening can be enough.

Deep Sea Divers

I've been re-reading portions of Philip Yancey's book on prayer this week as I prepare for a (unexpected) sermon on Psalm 13. Yancey has a gift for listening to the wisdom and insights of other people. Two of those insights he includes in his book include similiar metaphors--and they seem fitting for this week.

On grief: "Evengelicals tend to want to get to the happy ending. Sometimes, there is no happy ending, and we're simply suspended in grief. When I'm with suffering people, I feel like a deep-sea diver accompnaying them into the depths. Come up too fast, and you'll dangerously decompress. We need to stay with the grief for a while, feel it, let it out. maybe we can see things through tears that we can't see dry-eyed." (269).

On prayer: "...God has equipped us to go deep-sea diving and instead we wade in bathtubs. What makes the difference...is how seriously we take prayer. I see prayer as the process of becoming available for what God wants to do on earth through us." (276)

Wisdom: A Sneak Peek of Daniel 4

Working on Daniel 4 this week, I was reminded of the opening line of John Calvin's Institutes.

"Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves."

Hopefully, we'll take a few steps in the direction of that "true and sound wisdom" this (and every!) Sunday morning.

Praying for Your Pastor

Flipping through Ephesians on Sunday night, I found a pastoral prayer request that ties in well with my last post. Paul says: Pray for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel...Pray that I may declare it as fearlessly as I should. (Ephesians 6:19-20)

A good one for Paul...and a good one for me!

More on Judgment

Just to prove that I wasn't making up what I said in my last post about judgment, here's a snippet from N.T. Wrights book, Evil and the Justice of God, which I finished up this weekend.

“God’s justice is not simply a blind dispensing of rewards for the virtuous and punishments for the wicked, though plenty of those are to be found on the way. God’s justice is saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place.” (64)

I told you so :-).