I try to listen. Every chance I get. I am a visual learner, so being quiet, taking in sounds, words, wind, birds, a conversation, is something I work at. It’s a funny thing, but I find it’s amazing how much I hear when I listen.
“Increase our faith,” Luke has the apostles saying in his part of the Gospel (Luke 17:5). It’s during the trying times that we ask for something like that. When we know we’re working through something. It’s never when things are going well and life is good. Those aren’t the times made for faith.
When I sit in church, I try to make my posture silent and open, so I can take everything in. It’s those moments where hymns, songs, scripture, sermons, feel directed to my ears.
Am I being the person I am supposed to be? Am I doing the things I am supposed to be doing?
Those are the crossroads questions. Livelihood, being a good father, relationships, life, spiritual path, faith… those questions come up, sometimes we have an answer we are happy with, sometimes not, sometimes we don’t know. Those are times for faith. Leaning away from worry and leaning into faith.
Even when we can’t do it, God moving through us can make great things happen.
When we face doubt, struggle, our limitations, if we get out of the way, if we make room, God can work through us.
Being mindful not of who we are, but “Whose” we are…
What a difference a letter or two can make. When I am thinking through questions about living my life, remembering that life is a gift and should be treated accordingly, with gratitude.
I rode my bike down Boone Creek Rd., and looked up the creek. There was a deep silence, a stillness, the same as I felt in church earlier.
…silence to open a path… experiencing the stillness of God’s comforting grace.
There are times when I dig the hermit on the mountain idea. Cultivate that silence and rest in it. But I know at the bottom of that savored solitude, something is missing for me.
This great capacity we have as human beings to love, makes us better.
Ah yes, there it is. Maybe we’ve got this grain of mustard seed in us (sticking with Luke) that can grow into something beyond what we even thought it could.
In stillness, it can come to us. God can come to us. When we are still. And listening. But don’t expect a road map. Don’t expect answers. If it were easy, if it were clear, it wouldn’t require faith, this walk.
Not all things in life are unscarred, pure, and perfect.
Amen. It’s our scars, our particular brokenness and how we are put back together, that defines us.
Increase our faith.
[italics are words taken/quoted from a sermon on Oct. 2, 2016, Christ Church, Easton, Md.]
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment
didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all
that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say excellent blog!