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Thoughts of waiting from Henri Nouwen
"Waiting is not a very popular attitude. In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go.
It impresses me, therefore, that all the figures who appear on the first pages of Luke's Gospel are waiting. Zechariah and Elizabeth are waiting. Mary is waiting. Simeon and Anna are waiting. The whole opening scene of the good news is filled with waiting people.
But what is the nature of waiting? What is the practice of waiting? How are they waiting, and how are we called to wait with them?
Waiting, as we see it in the people on the first pages of the Gospel, is waiting with a sense of promise. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more.
Second, waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.
But there is more. Waiting is open-ended. Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something very concrete, for something we wish to have. "I wish that I would have a job. I wish that the weather could be better. I wish that the pain would go."
For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want the future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair.
But Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary were not filled with wishes. They were filled with hope. Hope is something very different. Hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled, but fulfilled according to the promises and not just according to our wishes.
Just imagine what Mary was actually saying in the words, 'I am the handmaid of the Lord...let what you have said be done to me.' She was saying, 'I don't know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen.'
She trusted so deeply that her waiting was open to all possibilities. And she did not want to control them. She believed that when she listened carefully, she could trust what was going to happen.
The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control."
TIME is a very special gift-
so precious that it is only given to us moment by moment.
Amelia Barr
Life is a promise, Fulfill it. Mother Teresa
Jesus purposefully pursued quiet time with His Father--a sacred space worthy of sacrifice, where the urgent bows to the eternal; a gift--not a waste--of time for God.
Carving out moments to be alone with God is an exercise in stillness where we elevate the Creator above creation, "being" above "doing". Where we listen to the One who is always listening to us.
Resting in God's presence, our soul enjoys a banquet from God's Word. Our minds forge an alliance with truth, and dreams are born. Alicia Britt Chole
He who loves me will be loved by My Father, And I will love him.
John 14:21
He who loves me will be loved by My Father, And I will love him.
John 14:21
Reading in Champagne for the Soul by Mike Mason this Sunday morning 9/19/10 and Mike is sharing about keeping the fire of Joy burning/building in our lives. "Yes, Joy is God's gift, but we must stretch out our hands to split the kindling of prayer, carry the logs of good deeds, lay the fire of faith and strike the match of the Spirit." Mike goes on to state..."If we do our part, the Lord will not fail to build a cheerful, roaring fire in our hearts."
Got to do our part....novel idea. So many times we want God to do it all...but we are in a relationship andall great relationships require that each do his part.
Just like our faith.....we might at one time been on fire...but it is cooling....is that becasue I haven't spent time with Him...in prayer...in His word....with fellow believers and non-believers...in serving Him...in being silent...in waiting.
The fire will come and will grow...we need to be diligent in its building!
Henry van Dyke said: Time is too swift for those who fear, too long for those who
grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love
-- time is eternity.
In CRAZY LOVE Francis Chan in Chapter Five....Serving Leftovers to a Holy God...speaks of lukewarm as in Revelation 3. He states..."as I see it, a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron"...what do you think? Certainly deserves reflection time.
I, like many, are reading Francis Chan's CRAZY LOVE-overwhelmed by a relentless God. I am using it as a basis for a discipleship study Palm Beach Cardinal players.
Jeremiah 1...verse 5
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
As Francis says "In other words, God knew me before he made me."
I am reflecting on those words...He knew me even before I was born and he has the desire to know me today and for me to KNOW Him and the JOY that comes from that relationship. What an invitation! Intimacy with my dad. Can it get any better?.........I am planning on it!
