I believe in God, so I spoke. 2/4/24

 2/4/24

February 4th, 2024

Sunday Morning Meditation

Finding your voice…

My morning Bible Meditation found me reading II Corinthians Chapter 4 and my eyes fell on  “...I believed in God, so I spoke…(v13), and that kind of jumped out at me.  As I sat, I reflected on how that would apply to myself, a believer, and a person never short of words.  The older you get the more history you have to judge by, the truer the image fits reality.  

My prayer journal shows bursts where my prayers lean heavily in one direction then in another,  a good indication my faith is not rooted and my spine weak and I am panicky as I try to control events.  But if one pulls back a bit, a longer trend shows a steady move in one direction.  Think of it as how a tree grows towards the light, the winds of the day may buffet, but overall the tree seeks the sun and as it matures it is less and less influenced by the winds…

When I was younger, when I spoke my ego wrote the script and was prejudiced towards making sure I spoke well of myself.  When I spoke of others it was mostly of shortcomings, and when I spoke to God my prayers mirror the lyrics of Janice Joplin’s plaintive plea, “Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends!”

A prayer to which God remained silent, and which I take as proof that our Lord is patient and longsuffering.

Aging and maturing don’t necessarily go hand in hand.  I think it’s fair to say, I had a very long childhood.  In some way, parts of me have refused to grow-up, fighting instead to remain that self-center, ego ruled child.  But on the whole, I changed as I hit my mid-fifties/early sixties.  I think we all do.  I worked at sorting out the relationships I had with God, the people around me, and with myself.  Depending on which voice I was listening to in my head, my conversations /prayers varied from helpful and supportive to mean-spirited, sarcastic, and egocentric.  Altho now in my early seventies, there is still a part of me plagued by arrested development, desiring all the self-centered cash, gifts, prizes, and recognition this world has to offer.  My conversations with God, mentioned the Mercedes less and less, and more and more merely asked for help sorting out my life.  I found myself less and less asking God to help those around me see the splinter in their eye, and more and more  for me to see the log in my eye.

In the last few years (I’m a slow learner) I’ve come to realize God has been working in my life and the lives of those around me. I am more and more aware of the struggles and heavy burdens many of those around me have to deal with every waking minute.   I too often had accused God of dereliction of duty, with few prayers answered and rarely feeling his presence as I saw misfortune,  injustice, and war wreak havoc the world over.  Now I see that that is just the way this world is; tyranny, injustice, and war are the norm, not the exception.  This world is NOT going to heal itself.

Now, I no longer even think of the Mercedes, and I continually ask God to protect those who drive the Porsches.  The more I work on my ego the less I find myself talking.  The less I talk the more I can listen.  The more I listen, the better I know the Other.  The better I know the Other, the more I see a sojourner like myself.  Sojourners in search of that “something” that is not of this world, but the world to come.   God is Good, indeed

bobb 

Post Script;

Paul was quoting from Psalm 116 of which in part reads;

The Lord protects those of childlike faith;

    I was facing death, and he saved me.

7 Let my soul be at rest again,

    for the Lord has been good to me.

8 He has saved me from death,

    my eyes from tears,

    my feet from stumbling.

9 And so I walk in the Lord’s presence

    as I live here on earth!

Paul paraphrases verse 10 saying “I believed in God, so I spoke”.  And that’s how I feel and that is what I hope comes across in my everyday conversations  and posts.