Pray like Jesus!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

PrayingLike-JesusHow should we pray? the disciples had asked Jesus during their walk with him.  At that time, before his resurrection, Jesus taught them the Lord’s Prayer.  And earlier in admonishing the Pharisees for praying publicly just to be seen as religious and faithful, Jesus advised his disciples to pray quietly, alone, in a room at night.

Jesus’ instructions about how to pray specifically addressed Hebrew traditions and expectations up to that point.  Throughout his ministry he is teaching believers how then, they are to live, now that the kingdom of God has come to the world, penetrating and thus transforming believers hearts and minds.  He is teaching to a new reality that has yet to be ultimately fulfilled.  So, the disciples struggle to understand it all – how grace will trump the law; how customs, like prayer, the Passover meal, baptism, and church membership forged under the old covenant will be changed by grace. And sometimes the disciples just want the specifics, not the metaphors, not the parables, not seemingly ungraspable big ideas (love your enemy?)!  Just tell us Jesus,  How are we to pray?

So he gives them a script – he gives them the words and in so doing introduces the new reality that prayer is between two entities – it goes both ways.  Prayer is to be between you and your Father.  It is about a personal relationship.  A personal conversation.  “This is how to express that,” I hear him as he gives them the Lord’s prayer.  

So.  What does post-resurrection prayer look like? Is it different?   How are we to pray now that He is risen and advocates for us at the right hand of God?

Like Jesus did, I think.  Not just as he scripted before he went to the cross, died, and was resurrected.

Today’s gospel passage is a glimpse at how Jesus, himself, prayed.  Here (hear) his prayer, from John 17:

20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,* so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

He is praying for his beloved disciples.  It is so dear, intimate and personal.  He is praying for and over them that they may know through every cell of their being that they, like him, are one with the Lord, God – that He is in them, and they in Him.  And he is praying this publicly – not alone in the desert or in a private room but with many gathered around praying with him.

I realized as I was reading this morning that I was actually hearing Jesus pray this out loud and I was hearing it as if for the first time.

Many times the passage has popped in the rotation as the Gospel reading at Sunday worship. I’ve heard it read like most gospel readings in my church; another ‘for your information – let the words speak for themselves’ reading of the Gospel which will be unpacked later in the sermon.

But I didn’t hear it that way, today.  Instead I heard this as the prayer it was.  I heard my Lord Jesus praying.

And the prayer has a rhythm and earnestness to it that I recognized.  Just the use of the Father language alone sets this prayer apart from any I hear in my church.  But the sweetness, too. The total personal trust petition sensibility.  Ah.  So lovely.  Where have I heard this?

In the prayers of Evangelical Christians, with whom I have spent some time worshipping recently.

Evangelicals believe prayer is a conversation with God – that they speak to God personally and directly and He will not only hear, but at some point, respond.

Just as Jesus was doing here.  There’s just no question in Jesus’ mind that the petition will be answered.  Jesus prays directly, personally, intimately, and not privately.  And in so doing shows us how we are to pray.

Evangelicals will lift their hands, close their eyes and begin the conversation with words like, “Dear Father, hear me.  We just ask Father, that you…”

This way of praying is so intimate and so unfamiliar to me in non-private settings.  I do pray as intimately and directly when I am alone in my car, in bed, at the start of the day, even between the movements of the liturgy in worship.  But out loud and with other folks?  Not so much. This way of praying doesn’t come naturally as it seems to to those brought to the Lord in evangelical churches.

The way Jesus prays here to his abba Father  – our Father for heavens sake! – reveals relationship  and connects me personally with the Holy Spirit like no scripted prayer corporately recited in worship can do.

There’s a place for both, to be sure.  In fact, I can’t think of any more beautifully written and scripted, holy prayers than those found in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer.

But I hear the Spirit saying to me this morning, PRAY LIKE JESUS and do it more, unceasingly, unabashedly! Just do it.  PRAY LIKE JESUS!

Do I hear an Amen?!

 

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Following Jesus? God’s hand upon me?

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

feet-walkingFrom the Old Testament (Ezekiel 37:1)reading, today:

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley…

I’ve been thinking about how we followers of Jesus discern God’s hand in our lives?  Where do we know or see or feel His hand moving us one way or another?  To the valley and broad place or somewhere else?  Uprooting us from one location, planting us in another?

I was relating to a friend the sense that I was losing a grip on God’s hand in my day to day life, not only having trouble discerning which way to go, but wondering also if the path I had walked upon to this point had not been the one my Abba Father intended.  Had I gotten it all wrong?

I explained how I had put in motion a plan with many moving parts that from a distance looked to be the right next step into what I’ve come to call, the broad place.[1]  After I had moved 400 miles away from my permanent address to connect all the moving parts of the plan, I was thwarted.  At every turn.  Thwarted.  Wondering out loud to my friend,  “Did I get it all wrong? Has God’s hand not been upon me?  If God’s purpose for me had been what I thought it was, then  all the parts would have fallen into place, right?”  Just as Job expressed,

42:1 Then Job answered the Lord:
2 ‘I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Road Closed DetourMy friend suggested another possibility. Thwarts as detours, not dead ends.

She explained that when she senses an internal enthusiasm (entheos – God in it) for something that requires action on her part  she then puts together a plan and takes a step into it.  The enthusiasm – the Holy Spirit –  is the first indication to her that God’s hand is upon her, fueling her to action – be it a relationship that needs healing by moving towards someone with forgiveness or a new endeavor that requires time taken from some other discipline – perhaps ministry, education, leisure, or exercise.   If the plans just don’t unfold as expected, if the enthusiasm wanes, if the forgiveness isn’t received, if the time given to a new endeavor puts stress on other obligations, she knows those moments just as the ones that got her started to be by God’s hand (not causally, but present at the crossroads).

The thwarts tell her that the initial enthusiasm for the new thing, action, plan, was perhaps not enough or even momentary and her step into the plan, premature.  Perhaps she should have offered up the plan itself to prayer and discernment, listening  further to God to see how to get where He wanted her to go.

WARNING DETOURThe thwarts were about the how tos not the destination. Detours, not dead ends. She was still on the road following Jesus.

The description of the thwarts as detours made me think of bunny trails and pauses.  I’ve written about pauses before.  I’ve come to identify them as Holy Spirit whispers, especially when reading Scripture – an actual moment when my eyes avert upward and I pause to think about something.  Sometimes the pause takes me down a bunny trail of thought and prayer I could never have anticipated and once arrived, I am more often than not blessed by what the Spirit has revealed.

So it was when I paused at my friend’s suggestion that a thwart wasn’t a dead end.  “What if,” she asked.    What if the thwarts I encountered were simply pauses to send me down a different bunny trail for the Spirit to reveal something to me I wouldn’t have considered otherwise?

I took the pause at the Holy Spirit’s word and listened further to my friend (encouraging me in my faith) as she asked, what if I was to consider new ‘how tos’ – a new plan for the destination – thy will be done –  God had intended for me all along?

The-Long-and-Winding-RoadWhat if, instead of constructing new roads to avoid the detours I had encountered at an earlier junction, what if I returned to the old road and finished that leg of the race?  What if I was wrong about getting it all wrong?  Had the Lord paused me long enough to see that yes, by His hand I was lifted up and out and put on a new road, landing in a valley for a season, then a bog,  later a desert, and many hills in between.  But now paused long enough to be lifted out of this place and put back on the road I was to travel?

So.  Wind back with me to the start of this reflection and the question of how we discern God’s presence and guidance?    How do we know when we are being moved by God’s hand?

For me it has been in the detours.  In the pauses.  In the rerouting.  In the returning and reconsidering.  I gain confidence in knowing I am living by His hand when I dare to surface the doubt and wonder out loud with a believer or here with you.  Thwarts, not opened gates.  The detours, the pauses.  That’s where the Holy Spirit breathes into me.  And I stop long enough to catch my breath – His breath.   Thus refueled.  Onward.

Praise Him.

[1] Short background:  A few years back – the second half of my life –  I was in seminary seeking Holy Orders.  After completing only 2 of the 3 years of study and discernment I left.  I tried to return to my ‘before-seminary’ life but discovered I couldn’t leave it all behind and also couldn’t integrate the two halves of my life, cohesively.  Hence,  I’ve been making my way forward, yet betwixt and between,  following Jesus to the broad place, with no particular vocation in sight.

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Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

A Facebook friend shared the attached blog article, Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church.  His introduction to the piece I quote here:

So I know not every evangelical church falls into this, and I know quite a few non-evangelical churches who definitely fall into this, so I object to the placement of this as an “evangelical” problem.

However, I most certainly think much of this falls into American Christianity on the whole.The Church stopped trying to be the Church and rather focused on being cool. I have some other objections/things I love about this post, but I’ll refrain from more comments. Overall it is quite well written.

 

Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church.

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…now I am speaking to you Gentiles…

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

Romans 11: 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root* of the olive tree, 18do not vaunt yourselves over the branches. If you do vaunt yourselves, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.

Romans11At the grafting stage the new believer is green and stands out.  It looks tender even, and quite vulnerable.

It has to be cared for, watered, fed, looked in on frequently by the caretaker to ensure it’s adherence to the tree.grafting

If instead it is simply grafted onto the tree and left to its own devices, its chances of bearing fruit are reduced.

close-graftFrom God’s perspective it is helpful to remember that once the trees begin to bear fruit, the novice and old-timer branches are indistinguishable from one another, their leaves and fruit reaching up together in a canopy glorifying the Creator and not the created thing.

Paul brought many to the faith by preaching the gospel – many who were grafted into God’s realm by belief, not genetics.  And he tended to them during his lifetime, visiting, revisiting, writing letters, sending others in his stead, teaching and unpacking Scripture, anointing elders and leaders of the local church, encouraging all the new believers to love their God and love others as God loved them, impressing upon them the call to dwell in the Word and to Worship together.

Who have you brought to the faith?  Perhaps a friend or a child?  How have you tended to them?  Looked after?  Is there something you could be doing to help that newly grafted child of God adhere steadfastly and firmly to the tree so that s/he may bear fruit?

Lectionary Readings:  AM Psalm 95* & 22; PM Psalm 141, 143:1-11(12)  Jer. 29:1,4-13; Rom. 11:13-24; John 11:1-27 or 12:1-10

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…the Father is in me and I am in the Father

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

38But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand* that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ (John 10)

Richard Rohr,  a Franciscan of the New Mexico Province, teaches primarily on incarnational mysticism, non-dual consciousness and contemplation.  From his series, The Art of Letting Go, I developed a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for John’s gospel as the “Mystic’s Gospel.”  He suggests, convincingly, that were it not for John’s gospel Christianity may have easily morphed into a judicial religion, not a mystical one.  In John, God reveals through Jesus the real story of the indwelling of the spirit that changed the world.  Jesus, Son of God, co-existant with God from the beginning, as the opening of John’s gospel proclaims:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Rohr observes that today, we individually and we as church seemed to have lost our way and forgotten this truth – the indwelling of the Word made flesh – that Christ is in us, just as Jesus, the Son, was in God, the Father.  

The in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit.  When the Spirit whispers this reminder as it did in this morning’s readings, I think breath – holy breath, holy oxygen, fuel for life.  And I take a quick look around my life to see whether or not that holy fuel is working in and through me, animating me as Jesus was animated for the glory of God, the Father.

And in taking that survey I never fail to be reminded how important at minimum is daily dwelling in God’s Word and weekly presence at worship to the life believer’s are called to live.

It is hard work this weaving into my life the truth of the gospel, yielding to the Holy Spirit to animate my life and lead me, and not the practical enticements of this world.  I haven’t always worked so hard at my life in Christ.

For years I was just so comfortable letting the truth of the gospel simply come along for the ride in the life I was leading – as a companion to talk with every now and then, to consult, to pray to, to be comforted by.  And yet the gospel truth as companion alongside not inside was thus so distant as to not convict my heart let alone ground me, discipline me, transform me, lead me where He wanted me to go.

Once I began to dwell in His Word and worship more than once a week, the uncomfortable, yet glorifying,  transformation began.

It is in my practice of Bikram yoga where I often connect the notion of the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit with the reality of the transformative potential of Christ in me.

I know for some the idea that I encounter the Holy Spirit in what is thought of as an ‘eastern’ tradition, albeit an exercise routine, borders on heresy.  To those I say, lighten up.  Bikram yoga is simply the way I choose to keep in shape, physically – not spiritually.  I don’t practice Bikram to get with God but that I encounter Him in my practice should be of no surprise.  God is everywhere, present.

Every session begins with a breathing exercise – Pranayama breathing it is named.  Imagine for a minute you are in a heated room (a tangible reminder to me that the Holy Spirit is heat, breath, fuel) standing on a mat, facing a mirror.  Your eyes are open and you are looking at yourself in the mirror.   You are going to make some small movements with your hands, arms, neck and you are going to breathe deeply in an out.  Now, concentrate, listen and begin.

Here is a picture of what the movement looks like, followed by the script you would hear from the instructor.

pranayama-step1

pranayama-step2pranayama-step3

pranayama-step4

And at this link you will see the exercise in motion.

Again, here, below, is what you would be hearing from the instructor as you move through these motions:

Pranayama breathing is good for the lungs and respiratory system. We practice this in the beginning of every Bikram Yoga class to warm up the body internally. This prepares your body for the rest of class because it improves circulation, gives you energy for class, and promotes a calm state of mind.

Breath is life. We spend most of our lives using a significantly small portion of our lung capacity. By practicing this breathing exercise, we strengthen our lungs to use its 100% capacity. A stronger, more elastic lung supplies the heart with more fresh oxygen. The heart, in turn, provides the body with more freshly oxygenated blood.

Now, read that again and think Holy Spirit.  Think Holy Oxygen.

The in-dwelling of the Spirit in us.  Christ in Us.  It is the stuff of our life and the more we refresh and supply our bodies – our lives – with His Word and His Life the closer we get to living as He lived, forgiving as He forgives, loving as He loves.

How can we possibly live a life that glorifies if we are not properly fueled by the Holy Spirit? And doesn’t it take fueling and refueling over and over?  Is a one time deposit of grace all our abba Father intended for becoming sanctified, for being made holy, for living into who God intended us to be, to do what we are called to do to glorify Him?

I don’t think so.  At minimum I believe believers are called to a daily refueling in His Word, dwelling with Him in Scripture and a weekly dedicated corporate worship time, praising Him in worship.

This was a long post to suggest something so simple.  Not a ramble like the bunny trail of unconnected dots my reflections so often suggest, but close.

At the end of the day, I am grateful for John’s gospel of mysticism and the living Word I encountered this morning.

Holy Spirit.  Breath.  Refueling.  Practice.  Transformation.  It’s all good.  God in us, and we in Him.

Lectionary Readings:  AM Psalm 131, 132, [133]; PM Psalm 140, 142  Jer. 26:1-16; Rom. 11:1-12; John 10:19-42

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Groundhog day by your choice; not your abba Father’s…

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

jesus-healing-blind-manAs he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  Jn 9:1-4

Oh how offensive the presumption in the disciple’s question!  The blind man is so because of something his parents must have done?  Or worse yet, something he himself did?

The man man was blind from birth, raised as and  judged to be blind because of his transgressions.  He ‘deserved’ his blindness and was shunned to the point of begging (8The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’). He’s unclean, an outcast.  The community of faith has turned a blind eye on him.  Unseen and unacknowledged even by his mother and father.

Jesus sees him.  Jesus says, “Hold on…nobody sinned here! God is revealed in this blessed man’s blindness!” 

How inept human’s are – especially self-righteous ones – in judging sin in others, let alone themselves.

Put your trust in Him.  Without it you stand a good chance of living into the judgment of others in a sort of groundhog day existence, unable to allow God’s works in you  to be revealed and to bless others.

Lectionary Readings:  AM Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123; PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]  Jer. 25:8-17; Rom. 10:1-13; John 9:18-41

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A reason and a season all for good

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

Romans 8:28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

This first line of today’s epistle reading has been quoted to me often over the past few years by friends and advisors and teachers reminding me that God has allowed into the lives of those who believe suffering, confusion, doubt, chaos and distance for a reason and a season.

A reason and a season – God’s purpose and God’s time.  We sin, we suffer, we doubt, we resent, we blame, we injure and this is supposed to be the stuff of ‘working together for good?’ Indeed.  I have come to see these seasons as God’s behind the scenes work on and in me.  For it is in such seasons believers can do nothing more at times than to rest in the assurance of His promise that all things work together for good – His good.  His plan.  His purpose.

How many times in your own valley have you wondered, “Really?  Where are you God?  Are you responsible for this mess or am I?  Do you have me here for a reason?  Can this mess I’m in be untangled and worked out for any good?”

What I hear the Spirit saying to me in Paul’s letter is

  • God’s will be done, all for good in God’s time
  • Only God sees and knows the whole picture
  • God’s purpose for us includes seasons of despair, suffering, chaos, confusion and doubt; a reason and a season

Tapestry-Front1And what I see is a tapestry.  The image comes to mind often when I think of God’s will and plan and how it is exacted for good in God’s time – a piece of art that viewed from the front is complete, cohesive, beautiful, one image made of many, a big picture – the broad place –  composed of particularities (threads).

Turn it over and you see God’s handiwork, the behind the scenes chaos of what is seemingly ordered. Here are the journeys Tapestry-Back1– the broken threads, the disparate stitches – some crossing over others – the mix of colors and the messiness and tediousness of the work.

Threads of His making all woven together by His hand, for good, glorifying Him.

Lectionary Readings:  AM Psalm 95* & 102; PM Psalm 107:1-32    Jer. 23:1-8; Rom. 8:28-39; John 6:52-59

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The earth groans

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

Today’s excerpt from Paul’s letter to the Romans brought to mind a TED talk recently shared with me by my son – my son, the rancher.  He is presently employed by a fully operational and profitable “teaching” ranch (like teaching hospitals) located in the Western United States.  The ranch is at the forefront of a few in the U.S. actively employing new, environmentally sensitive methods for beef cattle raising, horse management, and seasonal crop growth within a ranch for-profit business model.  In preparation for his new position as a Wrangler, my son has been reading a vast array of research and case studies from all over the world.  On that reading list was the TED talk that he shared with me last week.

First, the passage from Paul’s letter that lead me to recall the TED lecture:

Romans 8:18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

These labor pains and the groaning of the earth is what I heard Dr. Allan Savory describing in his lecture. I myself grieved and groaned at the images Dr. Allan Savory displayed of the Lord’s earth.  It is drying up.  No matter where you sit on the global warming-climate change issue, if you are a believer, you would be hard pressed to see the photos of the earth from where our Abba Father sits and not weep at the decay wrecked upon the once fertile, green lands.

This TED talk (TED Talks:  Ideas worth spreading)proposes a solution to one aspect of the earth’s groaning, the drying up or desertification of grasslands.  In so doing so it reports the journey Dr. Savory and others took to get to the solution – to come back, if you will, to the natural order of things.  It is a biblical story and journey.  From creation to fall to mis-informed and observed attempts to restore, to resignation, to forgiveness, redemption, and finally, restoration.

From where I sit it is a chapter in the journey – this one through the desert  – as humans wreak havoc on themselves and the world by messing with the natural order almost to the point of destruction before coming back, seeing GOD in it, finding HIS way, restoring, redeeming themselves before HIM.  Order emerging from chaos.  God’s way.  God’s plan.  God’s will.  For all of us.  For all of His creation. 

Yes.  I saw and heard all this in the lecture.  I wonder if you do, as well.

Lectionary Readings:  AM Psalm 69:1-23(24-30)31-38; PM Psalm 73
Jer. 22:13-23; Rom. 8:12-27; John 6:41-51

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Grace, not Law, the brake specialist

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

Jn 6:6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

piraroMuch better on the whole and HOLINESS of us when it is Grace and not the LAW which governs.

Lectionary Readings:  Psalm 89 ; Jer. 16:10-21; Rom. 7:1-12; John 6:1-15

 

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Light shines through…finally

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Trinity Seasons

Fellow-travelersAfter completing today’s readings, I went to my scriptural  journal to wonder about hearing God’s Word and whether or not I hear it sometimes for other people.  Beginning with an abrupt stop at a specific word in the first psalm, and moving along a sort of prophecy continuum through Jeremiah, then John, then Romans, I ended with an ever-so-slight sense that I understand more deeply than ever before God’s word, His promise, His will – and not just for me.  Have I traveled in this valley sufficient time to have begun to emerge with an ear more attuned to God’s will and way for other travelers?

It went this way.  I heard something in this morning’s psalm that had application for someone else.  A word just stopped me in my tracks that I hadn’t noticed before.  And I realized it stopped me because it was uttered recently in a sort of prayerful cry by someone dear to me.

As I was thinking about the word, the psalm and the person, I turned to the  gospel, where I was paused by the Spirit again, at the earnest effort of the faithful disciples to understand what Jesus was saying about truth and discipleship,

…’If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ John 8:31

I then went to my journal where I found I had saved reflection (here, below) from Forward Day by Day that had appeared two years ago in the reading cycle.

John 8:33-47. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word.

The situation was tense. Two workers at the state-run psychiatric hospital were trying to get an agitated young man to go back to his ward.

“Why?” he kept repeating. He was in no mood to bargain. He wanted what he wanted, and he wanted it now. Still, one of the workers calmly kept telling him that if he’d just do this now he’d be able to come off the ward tomorrow. “But I don’t want to do it tomorrow; I want to now!”

Another worker walked over and asked the patient his name. It caught the young man off-guard. His face visibly softened as he said his own name. He told the worker his version of what was going on, and repeated, “I don’t want to do it tomorrow; I want to now!”

“I know you don’t,” the worker replied, and you could tell that he really knew. The young man felt this empathy.

“Okay. Sorry.”

Life is often not as we would draw it up, sometimes to the point that we literally cannot stand it. What a difference it makes when we encounter a fellow traveler who really does understand. And what a difference it makes when we realize we’re all fellow travelers.

Just two years ago I found comfort in the writer’s encouragement that when life is not going as we ever imagined, God still finds a way to let us know He knows, and we are heard.  He knows our trials.  He knows our ways.  He knows.

And this morning, as I wondered about what I was hearing from God for someone else, that Forward Movement reflection reminded me that I was crying out to be heard, myself,  only just recently.

Today, I know, I was.  And His Word in me, up and lighted part of the way for a fellow traveler.

I believe He gave me ears to hear the cry and prayer of someone else.  For just today, perhaps.  

But thank God – literally – that I can hear, see, and pray with my whole heart for anyone but me, for today, freeing the light within me to alight another.  

Praise Him.

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