Skip to main content

question mark

The state of things this morning was quite different from the state of things last night. Last night it was cool and misty, typical fall weather. When I looked out the window this morning at 8 am there was snow on the ground and it was still coming down. I had an appointment downtown (across a bridge onto the island of Montreal and then another 30 minutes away with no traffic) and wondered if the weather would make me late. I hate being late, especially when other people are counting on me.
Fifteen minutes into my trip I was sitting in slow-moving traffic, and I began to whine, "I'm not even on the island yet and I'm already stuck in traffic!" I hate whining, almost as much as I hate being late, so I am not quite sure why I insist on indulging in both of these practises occasionally, but I do. Nevertheless, this morning I smartened up pretty quickly and chose to pray instead and trust God with the timing. The snow cleared up as soon as I hit the city and I arrived in good time -there was no need to panic.
I used to frequently ask (almost demand, really) that God change my circumstances, or remove obstacles, or give me something better, or just CHANGE something! And if it did not happen immediately, I was deflated and defeated and somewhat faithless. I put altogether too much hope in something happening exactly the way I envisioned it. It really never worked all that well for me, to be honest. I have changed how I talk to God. One of the questions I now ask God when I feel some worry or panic or fear arising in me is, "Do I need to worry about this?" I have never heard a YES in response. Sometimes it is just a matter of asking the right question.
This is a chair on my deck this afternoon.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go
3 comments
Read more

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun.  I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading.  One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others).  Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding.  Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity.   In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007.   “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’   Consider but a sampling o
10 comments
Read more

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim
Post a Comment
Read more