S L O W
Wonderful weather - sunny and warm, wonderful sunsets, went dolphin watching. Priceless... when the temp in Minnesota will be around 0 degrees Fahrenheit when we get home. Oh well. But the dial-up has been s - l - o - w. So here is the rest of my New Year's thoughts...
The Old and The New
Continued
Thought #3
Looking Back-- For me, it was a year when I discovered the meanings of wilderness.
-- There was the wilderness of uncertainty and wondering as I looked for what it was the God wanted to do with me and for me to do with him. This one had been going on for a few years. Then in August my wife opened the Bible to any old page and found a passage that talked about a heart being recovered or found or renewed, I don't remember which. She had been worried and was in prayer and these words gave her an incredible lift. It was about that point that I discovered that I needed just to let it all go and quietly wait on the Lord. I turned it over again. Soon things began to move and now, for the next few days I am unemployed until beginning a new job on January 5.
-- There is the wilderness of the world out there beyond the church where God's love needs to be lived. I have found that the institutional church is, for the moment,not where I am called to be witnessing. Who is to live the way of the Lord in the wilderness of life without God? Who is to be the messenger who will share the hope and promise of God's grace in their lives? The answer is the messengers of the Lord- or the Lord's disciples.
Looking Back-- It was a year of rumors then war. A year when our nation was divided and in disagreement in ways we have not seen in many years. The rhetoric got greater and greater. We remember, forget, and rememeber again the terror of September 11 and yet want to maintain our ethics and morals while stopping a tyrant symbolic in action and threat of much we hold dear. And yet, we walk the edge of living that threat ourselves. So, on March 22, I wrote this as the War was beginning--
My Thought From March 22:
I went to bed last night aware of the silence that was all around me. I could sleep in calm and quiet as people in Baghdad were waking up after another short, and no where near as quiet a night. It is hard to comprehend what it must be like. So I give thanks. But it is a thanks tempered by the awareness that it is only by the accident of birth that I am here in Minnesota and not anywhere else. I can't say it is by God's grace. Why would God's grace be on me and not on some other person lying awake in Baghdad? Why can God's grace be used as to why I am blessed and someone else isn't? Or is it simply that my human awareness and consciousness just can't grasp the meaning of what this is all about.
I guess for me this is the other wilderness of the year past. I have had incredible difficulty sorting out my feelings and thoughts and reactions to the war. This has taken me by surprise. I have found that my old answers are not all that black and white- nor are the questions and answers of today. I continue to pray and reflect and read and think about it and am beginning to think that there is much that I am unable to understand (How's that for being profound!) and have to simply live with in the paradox of being human and Christian.Looking Ahead--
A Shrug of the Shoulders and a Hearty "Duh!" Guess that about says it all. I make no pretensions on wisdom. I make no claims of prophetic or other powers. All I know is that I will attempt to remain faithful as I seek His direction and wisdom and will for my new work and life. My almost daily blogging will continue to be a way that I seek to share in my small way the movement of God within me and I pray, the people of God.
And a final thought from Lileks at the end of his New Year reflection:
Here we go, friends. If you thought 03 was interesting, 04 will make it look like 96.
Remember what happened in 96? No? I rest my case.
New Job Starts Monday
Will be back with some more posts late on Monday. Have a good Sunday and beginning of a new week....
