I keep thinking that as I get older I will be wiser, better prepared to handle the challenges that come my way. I am very grateful I am less impetuous, more likely to think and pray at the beginning of a challenging patch, rather than waiting until I'm exhausted and furious because my quick-on-the-draw ideas are not working as intended.

But it is still hard to speak truth with gentleness and humility. It is still challenging to wait on a sense of rightness and peace (and often amazement that the way forward is so different than I would have concocted for myself). This morning this passage from Luck 18:1-7 showed up in my morning devotional email:  "Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?"

A recent situation left me longing to give a few beloved people a piece of my scattered and tattered mind. My kind husband (and best buddy) sat with me in a park on a lovely fall day as I cried to God to help me, help us, respond according to God's plan, rather than our own fear and pain. I can't report that all is suddenly well and working according to our limited idea of "right", but I can state how profoundly grateful I am that God has given me a sense of peace, a strong sense that God is bigger than this difficulty that seems insurmountable and horrid to us and that God loves all involved as deeply and wisely as God loves us, so we can calmly watch for opportunities to listen and love without feeling the challenges are ours to fix. We can ask God to keep us quiet when speaking would add to the pain and to speak with peace and kindness when God would use us to speak wisely and lovingly to those we hold so dear.

Thank you God, for this timely reminder that You are always willing to hear our wailing prayers and that You have a plan for our hope and a future greater than we could ever imagine, and You love us into prayers of gratitude and love that we might bear the unthinkable, enduring the horrifying and know that You are calling all of us to a closer walk with You.  AMEN

As a follower of Jesus I am grateful for the Bible. But there are a multitude of voices seeking to interpret the Bible for me and everyone has different ideas. This is understandable because none of us speak God and God has to communicate with us in our own limited language and within the limitations of our human brains to even begin to understand God. So, just as a loving father adjusts his vocabulary to help his beloved child learn at the level he can understand while adding bits and pieces so that his child can grow in understanding and thinking skills, so our Creator Father encourages our understanding today and grows our understanding throughout our tomorrows. But none of us can fully understand God perfectly...because we are not God.

When we realize this it can help us be more gentle and humble in sharing our understanding and perspective within the community of believers and also to those who are living without understanding how much God loves them.

Because God is God and knows everything, I believe God knows exactly where we are, what we are, what we think, our deepest longings, and most private fears and loves us exactly like we are, today, without us doing anything even before we begin a conversation, begin being willing to listen for God's voice, see God at work, recognize God's emissaries, realize we are experiencing God's love in action in our lives.

And those of us who experience the hope of all that, the peace of all that, have a primary responsibility to share all that. I don't mean by going door-to-door to tell people what we believe they are doing wrong. But rather by listening and serving them and being along side of them so that we may be, as servants of the Most High God, safe places for people to be transparent and vulnerable, and loved without barriers or conditions, just as God has done for us through the blood of Jesus.

If you are thinking: "That does not sound like the Christians I have encountered!" I can understand that. But here is the thing: we are all a work in progress and we cannot ever replace God in the LOVING department, but we are learning and some are better at that than others. Don't let the rookies distract you from the journey, but rather keep seeking people who are genuinely loving in their relationships, because they are closest to God.

Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
- John 10:27-28 (NIV)