Monday, February 20, 2012

Wait for God...

Wait for God, Be strong and let your heart take courage.
(Psalm 27:14)
I begin this week thinking about getting my heart and mind ready to go on the journey.  Waiting for God by being strong and letting my heart take courage.  I want to share with you over the next few days some scriptures as presented from a prayerbook given to me recently by my friend, Pastor Larry Hastings.  He graciously presented me with, "Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace", by his friend, John Philip Newell. I hope you will take time to reflect upon these scriptures and your spiritual connection as we begin the journey of the Lenten season.  

Waiting... 

is something we all do.  Like everything else, some of us do it better than others.   I can remember my father coming home from work one day when I was a scrawny kid telling us about the hot dog he'd had for lunch that day while out on the job.  He'd most likely stopped at this tiny hole in the wall place called 'Richey's in my home town of Petersburg, VA.  I vaguely remember it as one of those places where there was this itty-bitty sliding window and maybe a small ledge to rest your arms on, but where, most adults would have to bend down to peer into and place
an order through the combined smell of sugary sodas and greasy spooned items.  Dad explained that he'd had a hot dog cooked in a little over 30 seconds in something called a microwave oven.  No longer did you have to wait those long dreaded minutes of either grilling or boiling.  He said he bit into it and burned his mouth it was so hot on the inside!  

Nowadays the microwave oven takes too long and that message or document we used to have to wait for in the form of something called a letter, just isn't fast enough in the form of a fax so we scan them in electronically and if they don't arrive instantly we get aggravated.

We shut off the computer in frustration, but we can reboot.

Waiting for God too is something we do.  We want answers instantly and if we don't get the answer we want, when we want, we get aggravated.

We shut God out in frustration.  Thanks be to God for the ability to restart.

Wait for God, Be strong and let your heart take courage.

Peace,
Ray