Owning and Saying Our Prayers ~ God's Calling

 

A week ago on Sunday, we opened our hearts and whole lives to the narrative of Abraham and Sarah’s calling from God. We held lightly that God is never finished crafting and creating in us and through us.  No matter how many birthday candles were on your cake last year, God is still moving in your midst in meaningful, life-giving, and life-changing ways.

 

Yet, our minds have a few false phrases that can be repeated on a loop. Have you ever found yourself saying, “It’s too late.”? Or “You missed your chance.”?  Or “I guess that ship has sailed.”  Sometimes we say this to excuse ourselves from the calling. We want to convince ourselves that the window closed, ignoring the other door that opened. To be sure, there are moments when it is too late.  I cannot rewind time to go back to when my kids were little.  But it is a false narrative to think that it is too late to be a loving parent. If there is breath within me, there is an opportunity to share God’s love, to forgive, to do justice, and walk humbly with God. 

 

Abraham and Sarah learned that lesson late in life. Hannah learned this as well in her life.  She thought that the chance to have children was never going to happen.  She called out to God.  I love that part of our calling story isn’t just us sitting passively by waiting for God to text us or hit us up on social media. We can call on God. You can call on God.  You can awaken the courage of your inner-Hannah and call on God with the deep desires of your life.  To be sure, God’s collaboration and cooperation and co-authoring your life may not exactly look like your five-year-plan.  God often takes me on circuitous routes, with many exit ramps, where my five-day-plan is no longer relevant or realistic.  But, in each moment every day, I try to be honest about what is stirring and swirling deep within me.  Hannah reminds us that we are not just some puppets with strings God is pulling; we have a voice (remember vocation, calling, comes from the Latin root for voice); we have agency; we have prayers for our lives.  We need to voice those honest and heartfelt prayers, own those prayers, let the deep part of ourselves vulnerably have a seat at the table.  Remember, your soul is shy and takes time to open (or unfurl and unfold like a flower).

 

What is your deepest prayer for yourself today?  Not your prayers for others, who I know you love.  But for yourself?  If you were like Hannah to cry out to God, what would you long to be born within you today?   I hope you will sit with those two questions today and let them simmer prayerfully in the stew of your soul this week.  Amen.

God's Calling ~ Day by Day

 

I pray you found some faithful fodder in the invitation to explore and examine your life this week.  I pray you will continue to do so.  Our callings are not discerned in the blink of an eye.  We cannot manufacture or microwave the movement of the Spirit.  We stay open to God’s continual calling ~ seek to unfurl and unfold like the flower our life is.  Part of what I love about the Abraham and Sarah narrative is that they are called late in life.  When we arrive on the scene of the story, we don’t know much about their past.  We know they don’t have children.  We know that Abraham seems to be financially secure in life.  Maybe Abraham sold camels or rakes to made designs in the sand because both those jobs sound like a fun and profitable professions.  We know that God calls them at age 75.

 

I will let that last sentence sink and settle in.

 

You are never finished with your calling.  Your calling shifts.  Abraham and Sarah were already called to one way of life ~ or more likely many ways of life ~ prior to when we meet them in Genesis.  Maybe they were trying to enjoy the good life, going to go spend more time at the beach or take up golf.  But, God continues to call them, AND God calls each of us as long as we have breath.

 

In new ways…each day.

In life-giving moments…and sometimes on the spur of the moment.

In staying the course…and sudden shifts in new directions.

 

Your life, minute upon minute, is one way God shows up.  I pray each of us continues to both pay attention and find the courage and conviction to respond to the holy beckoning us forward.  May your life be a faithful prayer of words and actions and openness and willingness each minute today. Amen. 

God's Calling ~ Threads and Themes

 

This week we are opening our life each day with our Sherlock Holmes’ hat on to see where we might be sensing the Spirit and where we feel like we are in the doldrums.  Where do we want to drop the anchor of the boat of our life to enjoy the Eternal and where do we feel like there is no wind in our sails.  Where do we feel like we are cruising along skimming the surface of the stream of life and where are we depleted.  Hopefully you are continuing to each night look at your life.

 

One way we explore our calling is not through some intense prayer retreat or some survey we fill out or psychological tests ~ although all three of those can provide beautiful insights and can be helpful.  One way we explore our calling is to notice the patterns of life that get played out.  Are there any themes or threads of experiencing the Eternal that are starting to emerge through this exercise?  By the way, it may be way too early to see or sense any patterns that are being played out.  But today is a good day to look over the last three days at moments that filled you with life.  Because where there is life, there might be seeds of your calling.  Or, maybe you are filled with curiosity and fascination, this could be what you are reading and can’t wait to share an insight with others.  Or perhaps threads and themes of teaching and learning are seeds of your calling.  Perhaps where you are feeling alive is connecting with others.  Maybe you are alive outside in God’s first testament of creation, there is a calling to help others notice the beauty of the world.  Is there any connection day-to-day where you are feeling most alive?

 

Today, take time to see if there are threads/themes starting to slowly emerge, just like a small sprout peeking out of the soil in Spring.  There may not be any themes yet, so continue to be open to God’s movement on this Thursday.

 

Prayer: Gracious God continue to remind me that calling doesn’t need to change the world and solve every single problem.  You crafted and created me in particular and powerful ways with gifts and limitations, so help me continue to life Your image which embraces both.  Amen.

God's Calling ~ Holy Ordinary

 

Day three of the nightly challenge to review and remember your day for traces of God’s grace and moments when you felt wanting.  To be sure there are many, many moments in-between.  On this hump-day, this day in-between Sundays, this messy middle moment, I want to invite you into the ordinary of your life.

 

Honestly, not every lunch can be categorized and compartmentalized as either holy or lacking.  Sometimes my sandwich is just a sandwich.  It didn’t taste like manna from heaven and it was not awful, it just was.  The sandwich nourished my body so I could move on to other tasks that day.  Not everything has to be awesome or amazing or the best moment ever.  Not everything that happens to you each day will be able to be put in a neat and tidy column on your piece of paper.  Many moments are in the messy middle.  There was good and there was bad or it just was. 

 

I invite you today to pay attention to those smaller, subtler moments, like lunch.  Or like a meeting.  Or like a doctor’s appointment where everything is fine and the doctor kind of listens to you but clearly needs to get on to the next patient.  Or like driving down the road to pick up milk.  Hold the ordinariness of that in your heart. 

 

I don’t believe Abraham was hanging out in the desert, looking at his watching and thinking, “Well, God should start speaking any time now to call me to be a great nation.”  He was going about his day.  I wonder if God had tried to get Abraham’s attention before, but he was too busy feeding the camels day old bread or raking the sand or patching the tent.  (By the way, I have no idea what Abraham did to fill his days, but I like the image of him tossing old bread to his camel to try to catch.)

 

Maybe God had tried to clear God’s throat and Abraham thought it was a rumble of thunder, so he went inside.  Maybe God had said, “Abraham,” but he thought Sarah needed him so he went to talk to her.  Maybe God had been crying out, “Look at me, look at me,” but Abraham was too busy replaying a conversation with his neighbor in his mind thinking that next time he is totally going to tell that neighbor what he really thinks!

 

The holy in the ordinary.  Our calling coming not in moments of spectacular or set apart, but in the sacredness of this in-between day called, “Wednesday.”

 

May the words you have just read come to life with God’s spirit in life-giving ways this day.  Amen.

God's Calling ~ Prayer Practice

 

How did the exploration of your life go last night?  Did you pause before you closed your eyes to rewind the tape of the day in your life titled, “October 4, 2021”?  Did you look through the moments, minutes, hours, and all that was experienced within the container of yesterday? 

If not, it is not too late.  Pause now.  Breathe in the breath of God.  Close your eyes.  Picture what you had for breakfast yesterday.  Did you taste manna from heaven in your pumpkin-flavored English muffin (remember, I love all things pumpkin)?  Did you sense God mid-morning as you went to the grocery store?  Did you feel a bit worn down by the afternoon, closing your eyes for a few moments of rest and renewal?  Did the holy help wake you up refreshed?  What about dinner time?  How did your wind down and wrap up your day?  Or were there moments of frustration, fear, and feeling worn down? 

This prayer practice is a wonderful way for you to keep track of moments in your life.  This is a great way each day to notice and name where we feel alive and where we feel worn down and weary.  We like to think that our mind is like a state-of-the-art camera capturing everything.  But there are so many filters on our mental camera.  Filters of emotions, our brains processing ~ sometimes projecting, the spiritual soul which is shy trying to offer a few thoughts, other people’s interpretations.  No one really teaches or tells us how to process all that is in us.  Plus, for many, we were taught not to listen or lean in to our lives.  We were taught and caught that the better script in life is the one given to us by the culture, by others, and we have no choice in following that narrative.

When we take time to explore our life, we are opening ourselves to the foundation and formational truth ~ you are created in God’s image.  Yet, God’s image is under layers of others expectations and social media posts and the divisiveness that hangs in the air we breathe.  To step into a sacred space of looking at our life is a vital way to let God get a word in edgewise.  To unfold and unfurl like a flower ~ to use the image from Sunday’s sermon ~ each day.

Prayer: Speaking and sending God, as You called out to Abraham and Sarah on an ordinary day in their lives, help me listen for Your holy prompting on this Tuesday.  Amen.

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.   

God's Calling ~ New Month

 

A brand-new month.  Pumpkin-spice is everywhere now.  Some of you are seeing the leaves change colors in a spectacular fireworks-like display.  Others, like me, are trying to notice the shades of green shifting subtly on the plants around us…waiting for the humidity to exit.  Every new month is a new beginning.  It is a reminder of the truth that Jon Acuff describes as, “Today is brand new and tomorrow is too.”

 

With a new month, we have a chance to take a step toward embracing and embodying, exploring and experiencing our curiosities and fascinations.  Not all of them, but I do pray one of them will be offered your holy energy this month.  You may want to select one that has less fears surrounding it, even if it isn’t your top curiosity.  Or you may want to swing for the fences and go for that top fascination, even with its honest fears. 

 

I suggest you plan and think today about a process.  For example, if in October, I am going to explore my calling, curiosity, fascination with photography, I might ~ put in my calendar three or four days this month I am going to pick up my camera and go.  Then, I might identify the three or four places close-by where I am going to take my camera.  The week before my “date” with the camera, I might go out on the web and look at photos or glance at the latest copy of Photography magazine to inspire.  Finally, when the day comes, I need to be careful not to let an emergency – internal or external – cause me to abandon my exploration of this calling. 

 

To be sure, at each step above, I will remind myself, “This isn’t about perfection.”  My date with the camera isn’t about capturing an Ansel Adams like picture that will make me wildly successful.  This first step is about showing up.  God can’t work with us when we don’t show up.  Life is about participation, paying attention, getting out there, and being part of what God is up to in this world.  Yes, photographs are part of that, because they remind me how beautiful the world is, even as news reports tell me about the brokenness. 

 

Prayer: God help me right now schedule time for the soul sperlunking I long to do.  Enliven and enlarge my imagination to travel the road toward bringing my curiosities off the page into this world.  Thank you, O God, for this month of October where we can each let our light shine…let them shine…let them shine in beautiful and blessed ways for You.  Alleluia and Amen.