God's Calling ~ A New Month

 

I love all things October.

Apple orchards ~ clearly the best fruit;

Craving pumpkins ~ clearly the best fruit in which to make a spooky or silly face;

Halloween ~ which allows me to pretend I am a superhero;

Leaves changing color ~ granted in Florida so the change is subtle and small from one shade of green to another, but it is there;

Cooler temperatures ~ I hear you friends up North reading this laughing;

As we turn the calendar to the new month, we enter the fourth and final quarter of 2021, what prayers are on your heart??

This new season ~ autumn.  In some ways, this is like a new year…before the new year of 2022.  Each month is a new beginning.  I am convinced and try to live by the wisdom that, “Today is brand new and tomorrow is too.”  We don’t need to be confounded or contained or control by the past.  We do often need to grieve the past so we don’t project our pain onto others; we do need to deal with the past; we do need to seek forgiveness and reconciliation because of the past.  Yet, so often we let the shadow of yesterday determine and decide what happens today.  We let the unprocessed pain linger and leave such a lasting impression that when we say, “This is the day God has made” we are about as convincing as Eeyore.

In October, I want to invite you to pay attention to the moments of goodness and grace alongside the unresolved and unresolvable.  The ancient practice among Christians at the end of the day, before they laid their heads down to sleep, was to ponder prayerfully ~ where did I feel most alive and where did I struggle, suffer, feel stress, and separated from the sacred.  To be clear, just because I feel like God is distant or disconnected, God still hovers/hangs around my life.  For my logical, linear friends, please take a piece of paper and divide it in half ~ horizontally or vertically.  In one part put those places and spaces you felt most alive.  Maybe when talking to a friend; going outside; sitting still; watching a good television show or reading a good book.  The point is to put on your Sherlock Holmes’ hat and investigate your life.  Remember, God often shows up disguised as our ordinary life in the simple and sacred.  Then, on the other part of the paper, list those places and moments when there was a storm in your soul.  Your friend telling you about cancer, watching the news, the repeated refrain of “What if…” scenarios that can dance around our hearts; creating endless fictional problems that you must solve; loneliness or frustration that sits on simmer in your mind. 

The more honest we can be with ourselves, the more we can tap into the holy.

I pray you will engage in this holy examine each evening this week. 

Gracious God, help me be open in rewinding and reviewing where I sensed Your spirit hovering and where I felt left out hanging out to dry.  May I continue to explore how to be open to You in all experiences and encounters.