Patience

The Downside of Having Skin

shelliwilliams Fear, Hope, LENT, Patience, Resurrection, Suffering


Scripture Passage:  Romans 5: 1-11 (Lent 3A)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord JesusSuffering and Tears Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right
time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is one of the hardest Scriptures for us (or at least the part of “us” that is “me”).  What do you mean suffering results in hope?  That can’t be right.  I mean, suffering=bad, hope=good.  Everyone knows that.  Isn’t that how it works?  But suffering is a part of life.  It doesn’t mean that you did something wrong.  It certainly doesn’t mean that God is sitting off somewhere doling out suffering like it’s some sort of giant card game.  And, please, DO NOT tell me that God would never give me more than I can handle. (aaaggghhh!)  What are we all supposed to get some sort of ration of suffering?  No, that’s not the way it happens at all.  Suffering just happens.  It happens because it is part of life.  We do not live as mechanical robots.  Suffering is part of the richness and profundity of life.  Maybe it’s the downside of having skin, of being created, of being real.  We all have needs.  Sometimes life is just too much.  (And sometimes it’s not enough.)  But will all suffer.  And where is God?  There…there in the midst of the suffering.  Suffering reveals the heart of God.

Almost twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, Poland.  I expected to be appalled; I expected to be moved; I expected to be saddened at what I would fine.  I did not expect to become so personally or spiritually involved.  As you walk through the concentration camp, you encounter those things that belonged to the prisoners and victims that were unearthed when the camp was captured–suitcases, eye glasses, books, clothes, artifical limbs, and shoes–lots and lots and lots and lots of shoes–mountains of humanity, all piled up in randomness and namelessness and despair.  This is the epitome of suffering.  This is humanity at its worst.  This is humanity making unthinkable decisions about one another based on the need to be in control, based on the need to be proven right or worthy or acceptable at the expense of others’ lives, based on the assumption that one human is better or more deserving than another.  It is something that in this divisive and vitriolic climate, we need to think about, to perhaps revisit what happened in what seems another world but is in THIS century of humanity.

And yet, God CHOSE to be human.  God CHOSE to put on skin, temporarily separating the Godself from the Holy Ground that is always a part of us, and enter our vulnerability.  God willingly CHOSE to become vulnerable and subject to humanity at its worst.  God CHOSE the downside of having skin.  Now maybe God was having an off day when that divine decision was made, but I think it was because beneath us all is Holy Ground.  God came to this earth and put on skin and walked this earth that we might learn to let go, take off our shoes, and feel the Holy Ground beneath our feet.  God CHOSE to be human not so we would learn to be Divine (after all, that is God’s department) but so that we would learn what it means to take off our shoes and feel the earth, feel the sand, feel the rock, feel the Divine Creation that is always with us and know that part of being human is knowing the Divine.  Part of being human is being able to feel the earth move precariously beneath your feet, to be vulnerable, to be tangible, to be real, to take on flesh, to put on skin, to be incarnate.  Part of being human is making God come alive.

Suffering exists.  It always exists.  Right now, there are people living in fear in Syria with no place to go.   There are young persons in North Korea that have seen what freedom can be and are craving it.  (Look at Flash Drives for Freedom.  What a cool thing!) There are people in Africa who do not know from where their next meal come.  Maybe we could stand a little reframing from Paul too.  For us, suffering is a failure; within the vision of God, suffering holds hope for newness.  Because in the midst of suffering, just like in the midst of everything else, we find God.  God walks with us through it, loving us and holding us, perhaps even revealing a way out of it, if we would only listen, and gives us a glimpse of what is to come.  The suffering of the world reveals the heart of God, reveals the holiness that is, if we will only look.  It doesn’t explain it; it doesn’t make it easier; it just reminds us that it is not the final chapter.  Maybe it’s the downside of having skin, which means that you are human, a child of God, made in the image of God, with so much more ahead.

In this season of Lent, we once again walk toward the Cross, with the drums of discord, still this moment far in the distance, growing louder with each step.  This season lasts for forty days.  But those forty days do not include the Sundays of Lent.  Known as “little Easters”, they are opportunities to glimpse and celebrate the Resurrection even in the midst of darkness.  They are reminders that even in this season of Christ’s Passion and Death, their is always a light on the horizon.  Resurrection always comes.  But it’s not a fix; it’s not a reward for the most powerful; it’s what happens when God’s love is poured into our hearts.

Look back from where we have come.  The path was at times an open road of joy.  At others a steep and bitter track of stones and pain.  How could we know the joy without the suffering?  And how could we endure the suffering but that we are warmed and carried on the breast of God? (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

On this Lenten journey, do not avoid the hard times, but live them, embrace them, make them yours.  And find in them hope for the journey.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Holy Patience

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Awakening, Awareness, Becoming, Listening, Openness to God, Patience, Presence of God, SEASONS, Seeing, Waiting , , , ,

PatienceScripture Text (Advent 2B): 2 Peter 3:8-9

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.  The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

 

I must admit that I am not the most patient person I know.  I think it’s safe to assume that, really, few of us are.  The world just moves too fast.  The patient ones, the ones who wait, tend to get left behind.  And yet, those of us of us who are always on the move don’t really get there any sooner.  What is that about?  And then we read this passage that describes God as patient.  Have you ever thought of the Divine, the Holy, the Creator, the One who is always and forever on the move, compelling us to go forward, to live into this glorious Vision that God has, as “patient.”  I suppose the impatient ones of us want God to get this show on the road, already.  After all, where IS peace?  Where IS righteousness?  Where IS this promise of no poverty, no hunger, no suffering?  But wait, it doesn’t say that God is sitting back on the holy laurels and being slow about things happening.  God is not slow to fill the world with glory; God is waiting for us, patiently waiting for us, to catch up.

 

So perhaps our impatience, our living life full-throttle, without stopping, just stopping to see what God is doing, to hear where God is calling, is what is slowing this whole thing down.  After all, God knows where God is going.  God is waiting for us, waiting for our response, waiting for us to perhaps wait to see, wait to hear.  Oh, shoot!  It’s back to that waiting thing.  We CAN’T hurry this along.  We CAN’T live for the next thing.  We CAN’T live as if we are in a season that is not quite yet.  God is waiting for us to stop, to wait on God, so that we can catch up to what God envisions us to be.  It’s back to the Sabbath ideal.  God created times for us to stop, to wait, to let ourselves sort of regroup so that we could move forward down the way we are called to go.

 

You’ve heard the story of the American traveler on safari in Kenya.  He was loaded down with maps, and timetables, and travel agendas.  Porters from a local tribe were carrying his cumbersome supplies, luggage, and “essential stuff.”  On the first morning, everyone awoke early and traveled fast and went far into the bush.  On the second morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went very far into the bush.  On the third morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went even farther into the bush.  The American seemed pleased.  But on the fourth morning, the porters refused to move.  They simply sat by a tree.  Their behavior incensed the impatient American.  “This is a waste of valuable time.  Can someone tell me what is going on here?”  The translator answered, “They are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.”

 

This Advent time is a time of waiting for God.  But it is also a time when God waits on us–patiently and lovingly waits for us to awake to God’s Presence, awake to God’s beckoning, awake to finally see where we were meant to be all along.  We cannot do that if we are too busy impatiently moving through life, always reaching and grasping for the next thing and missing that God is waiting for us now.  If we would be a little more patient, if we could just for a moment stop and breathe in that Holy Patience of God, perhaps God would no longer have to wait another day or another thousand years for the promises to come to be.

 

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only [they] who see, take off [their] shoes—The rest sit round it and pluck blueberries. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from “Aurora Leigh”)

 

FOR TODAY:  Stop moving so fast.  Be patient.  Look.  Listen.  Take off your shoes and be.  God is waiting.

 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

The Downside of Having Skin

shelliwilliams Fear, Hope, LENT, Patience, Resurrection, Suffering

Suffering and TearsScripture Passage:  Romans 5: 1-11 (Lent 3A)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is one of the hardest Scriptures for us (or at least the part of “us” that is “me”).  What do you mean suffering results in hope?  That can’t be right.  I mean, suffering=bad, hope=good.  Isn’t that how it works?  But suffering is a part of life.  It doesn’t mean that you did something wrong.  It certainly doesn’t mean that God is sitting off somewhere doling out suffering like it’s some sort of giant card game.  And, please, DO NOT tell me that God would never give me more than I can handle. (aaaggghhh!)  What are we all supposed to get some sort of ration of suffering?  No, that’s not the way it happens at all.  Suffering just happens.  It happens because it is part of life.  We do not live as mechanical robots.  Suffering is part of the richness and profundity of life.  Maybe it’s the downside of having skin, of being created, of being real.  We all have needs.  Sometimes life is just too much.  (And sometimes it’s not enough.)  But will all suffer.  And where is God?  There…there in the midst of the suffering.  Suffering reveals the heart of God.

More than a decade ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, Poland.  I expected to be appalled; I expected to be moved; I expected to be saddened at what I would fine.  I did not expect to become so personally or spiritually involved.  As you walk through the concentration camp, you encounter those things that belonged to the prisoners and victims that were unearthed when the camp was captured–suitcases, eye glasses, books, clothes, artifical limbs, and shoes–lots and lots and lots and lots of shoes–mountains of humanity, all piled up in randomness and namelessness and despair.  This is the epitome of suffering.  This is humanity at its worst.  This is humanity making unthinkable decisions about one another based on the need to be in control, based on the need to be proved right or worthy or acceptable at the expense of others’ lives, based on the assumption that one human is better or more deserving than another.

And yet, God CHOSE to be human.  God CHOSE to put on skin, temporarily separating the Godself from the Holy Ground that is always a part of us, and enter our vulnerability.  God willingly CHOSE to become vulnerable and subject to humanity at its worst.  God CHOSE the downside of having skin.  But God did this because beneath us all is Holy Ground.  God came to this earth and put on skin and walked this earth that we might learn to let go, take off our shoes, and feel the Holy Ground beneath our feet.  God CHOSE to be human not so we would learn to be Divine (after all, that is God’s department) but so that we would learn what it means to take off our shoes and feel the earth, feel the sand, feel the rock, feel the Divine Creation that is always with us and know that part of being human is knowing the Divine.  Part of being human is being able to feel the earth move precariously beneath your feet, to be vulnerable, to be tangible, to be real, to take on flesh, to put on skin, to be incarnate.  Part of being human is making God come alive.

Suffering exists.  It always exists.  Right now, there is a plane somewhere in the Indian Ocean that appears to have just dropped out of the sky, leaving myriads of friends and relatives who do not dare to grieve or celebrate.  There are Ukranian families and children that are living in fear for their safety and for what their world will become.  There are people in Africa who do not know from where their next meal come.  Maybe we could stand a little reframing from Paul too.  For us, suffering is a failure; within the vision of God, suffering holds hope for newness.  Because in the midst of suffering, just like in the midst of everything else, we find God.  God walks with us through it, loving us and holding us, perhaps even revealing a way out of it, if we would only listen, and gives us a glimpse of what is to come.  The suffering of the world reveals the heart of God, reveals the holiness that is, if we will only look.  It doesn’t explain it; it doesn’t make it easier; it just reminds us that it is not the final chapter.  Maybe it’s the downside of having skin, which means that you are human, a child of God, made in the image of God, with so much more ahead.

In this season of Lent, we once again walk toward the Cross, with the drums of discord, still this moment far in the distance, growing louder with each step.  This season lasts for forty days.  But those forty days do not include the Sundays of Lent.  Known as “little Easters”, they are opportunities to glimpse and celebrate the Resurrection even in the midst of darkness.  They are reminders that even in this season of Christ’s Passion and Death, their is always a light on the horizon.  Resurrection always comes.  But it’s not a fix; it’s not a reward for the most powerful; it’s what happens when God’s love is poured into our hearts.

Look back from where we have come.  The path was at times an open road of joy.  At others a steep and bitter track of stones and pain.  How could we know the joy without the suffering?  And how could we endure the suffering but that we are warmed and carried on the breast of God? (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

On this Lenten journey, do not avoid the hard times, but live them, embrace them, make them yours.  And find in them hope for the journey.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Last Minute Details

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Change, Expectations, Patience, Preparation

Last MinuteScripture Passage for Reflection:  Mark 1: 1-3

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,  who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:    “Prepare the way of the Lord,  make his paths straight” ’…

One week left!  So how many emails did you get today promising free shipping or half off priority shipping or 35% off or 40% off or perhaps a gift card to use later?  Everyone is in the last minute crunch.  And just as we enter the final stretch of all this waiting, it sometimes gets a little difficult to remember why we do it at all.  How long have we waited?  Well, this year, we’re only 18 days into it.  Good thing we weren’t part of those who waited for centuries upon centuries, trying their best to ready the world and ready their souls.  Good thing we weren’t there.  We’re probably not that patient.  So, are you prepared for what will come?  Are you prepared for that for which we’ve been waiting?

I must admit that waiting is hard for me.  But it’s because it’s sort of a strange notion.  I want so badly for that which I’m waiting to come and yet, the “perfectionist” part of me knows I’m not ready.  I mean, there’s always so much more to do, right? So, what if you turn on your computer or your television or whatever it is that’s the first thing you look first thing in the morning at and find out, horror of horrors, that Christmas arrived 6 days early this year?  Ugh oh!  That would be bad.  After all, we’re not ready!

I wonder what it was like that first Christmas.  After all, they had had centuries of waiting behind them so surely, surely they were ready.  And yet, don’t you think Mary and Joseph spent at least a little bit of time talking to each other:  “Really?  Now?  Now is really not a good time.  Why can’t we wait until we’re married, maybe wait until we’ve got a little bit of savings in the bank, or perhaps we should have another child first and practice.  I mean, really, this is a lot to ask.  We’re really not ready.  Good grief, we don’t even have a reservation!”  And those shepherds?  “Now?  We have to go now?  What am I supposed to do, just leave these sheep wandering on the hillside.  SURELY, you can wait just until we’ve got everything together, everything worked out.”  And what about the innkeeper:  “Oh come now, NOW?  Good grief, this is the first time that we’ve boasted 100% occupancy!  And NOW you come?”  And those poor wise men from the East:  “OK, I thought I had made it.  I thought this was the job of jobs. And you want me to go where?  The other way.  NOW?  Oh, come on, let me do this for awhile, maybe stock some savings away.  It’s not all that bad.  That is not good planning.”

Do you really think the world was ready?  Do you really think that they were all that different from us?  When are you ready to have your foundations shaken to the core and your whole world turned upside down?  Maybe the lesson of Advent is not to make sure that all of the last minute details are done but to teach us to prepare to be surprised, prepare to follow wherever God leads.  That’s the way you prepare the Way.  God will come when God will come.  We don’t have to have everything perfect; we just have to pay attention.

God did not wait till the world was ready, till nations were at peace.  God came when the Heavens were unsteady and prisoners cried out for release.  God did not wait for the perfect time.  God came when the need was deep and great.  In the mystery of the Word made flesh, the maker of the Stars was born.  We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice, or to share our grief, to touch our pain.  God came with Love.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  And go into the Light of God. (“First Coming”, by Madeleine L’Engle)

Reflection:  OK, this one’s hard…What do you have left to do to prepare for Christmas?  Take a look at your last minute details.  Now cross one off.  Ignore it.  And instead of burying yourself in the details, look up.  THAT’S the way you prepare the WAY.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Advent 3A: Hurry Up and Wait!

shelliwilliams KINGDOM OF GOD, Patience, Peace, Uncategorized, Waiting ,

Seeded FieldLectionary Passage for Reflection:  James 5: 7-10

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

OK, I have to admit that I am not the most patient person in the world.  (Like THAT’S a big surprise!)  So, this whole Advent notion of waiting and waiting some more is almost too much to bear.  And don’t you hate it when someone tells you to “be patient”.  Grrrr!  Look, you just don’t know what all I have going on in my life.  You just don’t know how hard that is!  (Yeah, I know, that sounds way too familiar for comfort!)  And something about this season makes it even harder.  We have to hurry up and get the tree up!  And then we have to hurry up and get all the shopping done!  And then we have to hurry up and get the gifts wrapped!  And then we have to hurry to the party and hurry with the cooking and hurry with the hurrying.  And, please, please tell us what will happen next so that we can get ready!  So, how in the world with all this hurrying are we expected to be patient, to wait for God’s time to be our own. 

There is a story that you’ve probably heard of an American traveler on safari in Kenya.  He was loaded down with maps, and timetables, and travel agendas.  Porters from a local tribe were carrying his cumbersome supplies, luggage, and “essential stuff.”  On the first morning, everyone awoke early and traveled fast and went far into the bush.  On the second morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went very far into the bush.  On the third morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went even farther into the bush.  The American seemed pleased.  But on the fourth morning, the porters refused to move.  They simply sat by a tree.  Their behavior incensed the American.  “This is a waste of valuable time.  Can someone tell me what is going on here?”  The translator answered, “They are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.”

Maybe that’s what this Advent season is–a season of waiting for our souls to catch up.  (So why did they put it in the busiest season of the year!  That doesn’t make sense!)  Whoever wrote this short epistle buried toward the back of the New Testament knew exactly what our problem was.  He or she knew that when we get something in our head, when we set our sights on something, we want it immediately if not last night sometime.  And so, many of us are running around with bodies and souls that are dangling, disconnected, not quite able to reach other, not able to connect.  Stop.  Stop what you’re doing.  Like the farmer, all that you are is planted and fertilized.  Now you have to wait.  You have to wait for God’s Spirit in God’s Time to rain in, drenching the thirsty soil.  Your soul knows how to wait.  There is a Divine Wisdom planted deep within.  The soul moves slowly soaking up everything in life.  Oh, what our minds and bodies could learn from that!  But we have be patient.  Sometimes we have to wait.  And sometimes we might even have to step back and be led to the next place. 

Perhaps rather than living life with the words “hurry up” always on our lips, we should live a life of “Amens”, “so be it”.  Life will be what life will be.  God knows that this is not easy.  There are things that we must finish and there are patches that we want to quickly run through so that we don’t experience the pain or the heartache.  God knows that it is hard to wait.  It is not God’s will that we suffer or that we have difficulties in life.  It is God’s will that we become who God envisioned us to be, that Creation becomes what God meant it to be.  It is all there, planted and fertilized.  But it takes time.  You have to wait.  The time is near but it is not yet right.  There is still more to come.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing, O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on, by prophet seen of old, when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold, when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.

Edmund H. Sears, 1849

Reflection:  Why are you such a hurry?  What are you missing by hurrying through life?  What is your soul trying to teach you?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Brick by Brick

shelliwilliams Cathedral, Faith, Patience, Trust
Building a Cathedral at Annecy, France
Edmund Blampied
Early 20th century

Lectionary Passage for This Week:  Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”  2But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”3And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”4But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”6And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.  7Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”8But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”9He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”10He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.  12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

We often read this story with Abram as the hero, trusting and faithful to God, who follows God’s call and believes God’s promises.  After all, Abram would become the patriarch of three worldwide religions.  But even Abram was not perfect.  Yes, the truth is, Abram was more like us than we care to admit.  He told himself that he trusted God, that God had made a great promise of descendants to him.  And he had waited and waited and nothing had happened.  So, he took care of it.  After all, he was old, Sarai was old.  Time was slipping away.  Something had to be done.  But, in Abram’s defense, remember what “barrenness” meant in that time. An absence of children was not just a discontinuation of one’s line or one’s name. It was death. There would be no one to care for you, no one to work with you to provide. Barrenness or infertility was looked upon as failure. It meant that God had not blessed you or provided for you.

But, God clarifies the promise a little bit more. This is not the heir that God had been talking about. The heir shall be a biological child of Abraham and Sarah rather than a surrogate birth. Well, I’m sure you can see Abraham rolling his eyes a bit. Are you kidding me? Because, you see, I’m really, really old. My wife is really, really old.  This is just not normal. This is not even rational. This is nuts!

Well, we know how the story turns out.  God, once again, in spite of Abram, comes through.  The truth is, that’s pretty much what God does.  We can plan and prepare and even force things to happen but when it’s all said and done, things will happen in God’s time.  The truth is, hard as it may be for us to admit, the fruits of trust and faith do not come to harvest when we think they should.  Did you read the last line of the passage?  Abram did not get the promise of land.  The land was to go to his descendants.  He was not called to deliver the world; rather, he was called to be a small part of a long line of the faithful that God would call.  The realization of God’s promise was not immediate gratification. (I mean, did you think that you were the only one to which God was making promises?)

Maybe that’s our whole problem. Maybe we want to see the fruits of our faith now, in our lifetime. Maybe faith is about realizing that we are part of a deep and abiding relationship between God and humanity as the holy and the sacred sort of dribbles into our world little by little. Our part is important but it is, oh, so much bigger than us. In fact, it’s really not even rational the way we think it should be. Maybe that’s what makes it faith. Faith does not teach us to believe; it teaches us to wait with expectant hope that when the time comes, the clouds will part and the light will break through.  In the meantime, we are called to keep building cathedrals, brick by brick, knowing that it doesn’t matter whether or not we see them completed but only that we had faith enough to imagine it to be.

So, on this Lenten journey, let go of needing to see the result and instead do your part to make it be.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli