This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell described the quest as the hero’s journey out from the ordinary to a place of adventure with the hope of magical rewards. It sounds fabulous. Until it’s not.
I’m currently on a quest for a personal retreat day. It’s not nearly so heroic as what Capbell described. Magical rewards? No, I just want to find a place where I can spend the day away with Jesus for prayer and journaling. A place without ping pong. Ping pong? [Read more…]
Have you ever prayed to God about something for a long time? I mean, I really long time, so long that you started wondering if God was listening? So long that you thought to yourself, “Okay, maybe God’s got something better planned,” but you keep praying anyway? So long that your friends have started giving you that line about how sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers? (That’s from Garth Brooks, by the way, not the Bible.)
Have you ever keep praying anyway, because what you’re praying for is good: healing or health, or a new job, a mended relationship, or peace with your children? Have you ever kept praying, even though God was silent? Where’s the hope?
The first chapter of the Gospel of Luke tells the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who have been praying for a child for a long, long time. “Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord, but they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years” (Luke 1:7-8).
(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)
Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.
“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”
Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me.
This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]
