Lead, Kindly Light

Haven’t been terribly faithful about blogging lately – life is kind of crazy-busy these days. But I miss writing thoughtful stuff, so I’ve got 27 minutes before class now, and I’ll try and tap out something interesting.

So – like I said – my life has been pretty hectic recently. The days are packed with investigations and witness interviews, formulating and articulating arguments for my upcoming trials, and doing last-minute research on the law. PLUS, studying for my classes, keeping up with friends, celebrating the Chinese New Year (today!)…

In the midst of all that busyness and running around, I find it difficult to pause, get down on my knees, and be still enough (physically and spiritually) to really pray. I send up these quick “Thank You, Lord for [preventing a car accident just now when I failed to yield/providing this delicious meal/so-and-so's encouraging email and friendship...]” or super-speedy “Lord, would you please [heal so-and-so; help me fall asleep tonight cuz I really need sleep; be with me and give me wisdom]” prayers… but prayer is supposed to be so much more than that.

Why do we pray? Prayer is a relational thing, between us as humans and our Abba Father. In the moments when I do get down on my knees and really contemplate Who I’m talking to, it amazes me. Father God, You are huge and mighty and Lord over everything–I’m trying to picture the whole universe right now, and me…I’m just a tiny fraction of minuscule percentage of a speck…and yet You hear me right now as I come to You. God welcomes our prayers; He urges us to pray, to come to Him in worship, in trust, in utter dependence.

The quick prayers aren’t wholly useless – but they’re kind of like one-line emails quickly shot off at an urgent moment. But relationships are not so constituted, nor built or sustained, with that type of communication. I’m thinking now about my closest relationships…take my best friend, for example. Our friendship was built first over outings together to local craft fairs and the farmer’s market, and gradually deepened when we lived together and stayed up until 2 (or 3 or 4) in the morning chatting away about everything from the mundane (food, movies, current events, school) to the personal (our pasts, futures, relationships, families) to the cores of who we are (beliefs, fears, aspirations). Our sisterhood (as I now consider her my sister) was built over crying together, laughing hysterically together, and pouring out our hearts to each other. Ours is now a relationship marked by incredible trust, loyalty, dependence, and love.

God wants that kind of a relationship (and even deeper! way deeper!) with each of us – and prayer is part of how we engage with God to make our way toward that depth of relationship with God. So. Knowing all that – yet having the interferences of stress and busyness – make for a challenge that must be met with a decision. To take time to pray, or not?

Like I said before, it takes a lot of discipline for me to pause and take time in the middle of my day every day to pray. I have to literally put it on my list of things to do each day in order to make sure that it happens. And sometimes I put it off…and put it off… and put it off…until the day is almost done! But I regret it. Because when I’m finally there in that moment and on my knees, I remember afresh and anew how much I need God. And no amount of running away or avoiding or procrastinating on meeting with Him could possibly do any good.

So -  I have to go to class now. Maybe I’ll add more to this post later. Hope it’s encouraging to you – and a good reminder again for me!  

I really wish I had more time to blog in-depth about this, but I’m really busy with work right now. As in, super-busy. But I just have to write at least a bit about today’s sermon, which was about Luke 3:2-6, where God called John out of the wilderness, and commanded him to prepare the way for the Lord – for Jesus.

And the pastor said a lot of useful things about the passage, but since I’m short on time I want to highlight a single point he made – that God calls each of us as Christians to prepare the way for Him too. There’s a chasm between each non-believer and God that exists when they don’t know anything about His Word or His Truth, or His love.

And that chasm can be bridged in any number of ways – God certainly doesn’t need our help to tell other people about Christ (in that, it’s not an impossibility without us), but often He does choose to reveal Himself to others through believers. So as believers, it’s really important that we invest ourselves in hearing God’s voice and following Him as He gives us opportunities to bring other not-yet-believers closer to God.

This message was illustrated beautifully by a dear friend of mine who is not yet a believer, but slowly is learning more about Jesus and believing more and more. Today after the service, he told me this, and it touched me so much -

“What the pastor said was so true – and I see that…wow…God has come a long, long way to fetch me! He brought me all the way from China so I could learn about Him here. He paired me with a couple awesome Christian roommates and so I got connected with a Christian fellowship. And then, when we went to China, I met you, and we talked about spirituality a lot… and then He brought me to this church, and… wow.”

Amen, and praise God. I can’t wait to see this friend become a Christian. And in the meantime, I’m more encouraged now than ever to be part of a bridge or a way or a path that leads people to Jesus…

So here’s what the bananas looked like in the middle of last week – becoming more yellow, with some dark spots appearing.

At the same time as the bananas were ripening, I had to practice patience. The bananas were a good reminder that good things take time to develop their sweetness. Annnd – near the end of the week, I got what I was waiting for – and now I’m waiting for the bananas to turn fully brown so I can make banana bread out of them.