Are We There Yet?

I  think that every child who has been on a road trip has asked this from the back seat of the car.  Family legend has it that my sister once said, “I enjoyed the drive, but can we take the short way home?”  In those days, there was no short way to get to the Okanagan from Vancouver; the 6 1/2 hour drive, including the winding road up the Hope-Princeton Highway was the only way.

Oh, how tired we get in the waiting!  Perhaps my own tendency towards impatience was born on these road trips.

These days I’m on a different kind of road trip, a journey of transformation.  Jesus is the driver and I’m trying to be patient.  I keep asking “How long?  How long?”, and trying to wrestle the wheel from him.   

Some days I don’t even know where we are going.  I keep turning to the bible, like some kind of road map, and I am comforted by the words that tell me how much God loves me.  In this love I place my trust.

This week’s scripture speaks of the waiting and the love:

Romans 8. 22-28, 38

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

I hope you can join us this Sunday to hear stories of the transformation road trip.  I’d love to hear your stories too.  What are some of the ways God is transforming you?  How is he doing it?

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete. 

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, excerpted from Hearts on Fire

Image eberhard grossgasteiger Pexels.com

What If We Don’t Have the Words to Pray?

The Trinity, by Andrei Rublev

I admire people who speak more than one language. Some days, when I try to pray, I can barely speak one!  

It makes it pretty hard to have a conversation with God.  I can't even say how I feel, let alone what I might need.  And then there are all the shoulds heaped on me over the years - I should begin with thanks, I should not treat God like a vending machine, etc., etc.  All those rules can make things more difficult.

One day this week I had no words, only sighs too deep for words. I sat, read some scripture and sat some more, now feeling that I was sitting in God's presence..feeling his love.  

God's Spirit, who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows what you and I need, keeps us present before God, and prays for us.  That is pretty amazing. 

This Spirit is who Jesus referred to when he said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever.” (John 14:16 NIV)

I can only thank God for this advocate, this friend, who does all this for me when I can't. God loves us so much that he did this for us. And Jesus asked God to do that.  That’s amazing too!

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we focus on the mystery of this three-in-one God, and his great love for us.  Here are our readings for this week: 

Acts 2. 43-45  MSG

Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common.  They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.

 

John 17. 20-23  MSG

I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me.

  

Romans 8:26-27 (NRSV)

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

I hope to see you on Sunday.

The power of God’s words works as leaven in the heart, awakening us to a personal experience of the presence of God that Scripture reveals. The Scriptures are one long love letter from God. Each verse tells the story of the love that perpetually calls us to itself….  James Finley

What are You Battling these Days?

Battleground metaphors are not my favorite spiritual metaphor; I am more drawn to the peace of still waters than to weaponry. But I was reading this week that the purpose of the Jewish festival of Pentecost is for God to give us power.  And the power of Christ requires some different language than the peace of Christ does.  

We have been reading during Easter about the times that the risen Christ appeared and said, "Peace to you."  Now, on Pentecost Sunday, we turn to power:

Acts 2:1-4 NRSV

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

The languages given to the disciples would enable them to witness to the end of the earth, as promised earlier in Acts:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’” (Acts 1:4-8). 

What else can power do?  As we sometimes sing in the African American spiritual, whatever you are fighting today, God'll fight your battles, if you just keep waitin'. 

O Church arise and put your armour on

Hear the call of Christ our Captain

For now the weak can say that they are strong

In the strength that God has given

With shield of faith and belt of Truth

We’ll stand against the devil’s lies

An army bold whose battle cry is love

Reaching out to those in darkness  - Keith Getty and Stuart Townend