Don’t It Sometimes Just Make You Want to Scream?

A cottage I once considered renting – gone. The nearby fish plant – nearly gone. The scenic road around a beautiful harbour – gone. That’s just one of many pictures we’ve seen from Cape Breton after the wind and waves cut a destructive path. And that’s just one of many weights we carry – threat of nuclear conflict internationally, food insecurity for thousands in our province, housing inaccessibility for even more – and the beat goes on.

And somedays you may just want to scream – maybe a release of emotion, maybe directed at God. But that may also be a terrific starting point for prayer which also leads us to engagement with helping change the situation. Lately I have been struck by how empty the words “We’ll be there for you” sound and yet how important they are if we really mean them. We need one another more than ever as friends who provide support but also impetus to act constructively.

Even prayer is a team game. One day a person of influence had a valued employee take ill – he cared for him as an asset and maybe even as a person. He had contacts and influence which he used to attract Jesus’ attention by establishing his own credentials and community standing. He had second thoughts and called some friends as backup lobbyists with a different, humbler message.

This time his message was “I don’t deserve you to come under my roof, but I understand how to exercise authority through others – it’s what I do. Just use your authority. Speak the word and my employee will get well.”

Let’s guess that six to eight people were part of his successful request – his employee got well. Jesus not only fixed the problem but expressed amazement at the faith of this executive. This isn’t a model of prayer we are used to, but it seems acceptable and attractive to Jesus (a good place to get our assessment).  (With apologies to Luke 7:1-10)

There are needs, we can meet them, but we also need our prayer to somehow become part of the mind of our Good God for our world. The man in our story engaged friends to frame a request but, in his framing, and requesting he changed to become one with the mind and methods of Jesus.

Sometimes I’m the one needing help. Sometimes you are the one helping me express my request to allow it to become aligned with the heart and methods of God. Our roles can change but there are always needs to meet, anxieties to address, fears to confront and successes to enjoy.

We need one another to help us grow into those who can let our desire for relationship with God motivate us to embrace the needs of our world with courage and compassion. Thanks for being with me in these nearly four decades of Touchstone, creating circles of friends who learn together how to love God and our neighbour together.       

Goodness of friendship grow among us,

Norm

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