Day 312 – Expectant Waiting
Having a Heart in a Sometimes Heartless World
Scripture focus: I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. Galatians 5:4-6 The Message
What exactly is so wrong with religious plans and projects that they cut us off from Christ and cause us to fall out of grace?
When we listen to Scott’s story – what do we conclude?
Should he stop worrying about a job, and choose to “live by faith”?
Is planning, preparation, and strategizing bad?
I don’t think so. It seems to me that what really matters is where we place our hope. In the second step – coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity – hope is placed in God. Does that mean that we should stop planning? No way! But I do think it means that we should never count on our plans and projects to provide that which only God can give – serenity, purpose, and grace.
It’s okay to expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. It’s not okay to presume that we control the relationship by establishing certain rules of engagement when it comes to God.
God is eager to have relationship with us whether or not our thought processes are perfectly straight. He loves us in the midst of our insanity as dearly as he loves us when we’re sane.
I love my boy whether he’s got a good attitude or a bad one about his job situation. Don’t get me wrong – I will dance a jig when he lands a job. But that doesn’t prevent me from dancing a jig over having a kid who actually thinks about unemployment and the second step simultaneously too!
As we near the Thanksgiving/Christmas season, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could actually dance a jig in the midst of economic downturns, uncertain stock markets, and even unemployment? I suspect if we could find our sanity in the middle of a world that seems pretty insane at the moment, we probably wouldn’t have to medicate ourselves with over-spending, over-eating, under-exercising, and wobbly believing. But here’s the even greater truth – if in case we do find ourselves thinking things that we’re glad others can’t hear – that’s okay too. God provides the gift of faith to the wavering and wobbly. In return, we can express that faith in love - a free gift that doesn’t require us to open a new charge account or loosen our britches after a heavy meal.
The satisfying life has far more to do with giving others the gift of love than whether or not our stockings are filled with sugar plums. May we all find a way to love richly this holiday season.
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