I am limited. I am finite.
When I look at my home, my marriage, and my kids and then look at my two hands and two feet, my intellect, emotional reserves, and the clock ticking on the wall, I feel so limited. The needs within my home and my family are often bigger than my resources.
How much more so when I look at the needs of my city, Bangkok, my countries, the US and Thailand, and this big, beautiful, broken world? I turn and look at myself and recognize that, without a doubt, I am limited. I am finite.
Into this space, come these two nuggets of wisdom, and I know the Infinite One is whispering Truth to me that swallows up the truth of my finite-ness.
"Our personal life is a finite thing: it is limited in every direction, in space, in time, in knowledge, in power. But God is not so limited. He is eternal, infinite, and almighty."
"It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work…
…We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders
Ministers not messiahs
We are prophets of a future not our own."
I pray that we would acknowledge our limits and allow them to be enveloped in the limitlessness of God. May we listen carefully to discern what God is inviting us to do, and what he is not inviting us to do. And may we do it well, trusting God to carry it to completion.
(Quotes from J.I.Packer "Knowing God" and from Archbishop Oscar Romero who was martyred for his human rights advocacy)
"I am noticing that the more I fill my life with the convenience of technology, the emptier I become in the places of my deepest longing.
"I long for the beauty and substance of being in the presence of those I love, even though it is less convenient.
"I long for spacious, thoughtful conversation even though it is less efficient. I long to be connected with my authentic self, even though it means being inaccessible to others at times.
"I long to be one who waits and listens deeply for the still, small voice of God, even if it means I must unplug from technology in order to become quiet enough to hear."
~ Ruth Haley Barton "Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation"
I'm always learning and re-learning this one. You too?
May God form us into people who are strangely forgetful of our devices and who are present to our spouses, our children, our friends, our work, our passions & longings, and the still small voice of God.
Amen.
"I'm thankful for my husband and my kids. I'm grateful that we're all healthy. I'm thankful for my house, my friends, my books…"
This was how I used to pray when I reflected on the good things in my life.
Then, a couple of years ago, I came across two sentences that changed the way I view the gifts generously dumped across each year of my life.
"Gratitude exclaims… 'How good of God to give me this.' Adoration says, 'What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!'" -C.S. Lewis
Moments of joy and things that are beautiful are just distant and brief coruscations (glimmers and sparkles) of the indescribably awesome Being who is behind it all.
Now, in addition to thanking God for things, I am drawn into awe and wonder over who He must be.
When I enjoy the simple goodness of watching my two-year-old swinging ("Higher, higher!") and singing every nursery rhyme she knows at the top of her lungs, I thank God for my healthy, second-born and I wonder in awe, "How good and playful must the Being be who thought up children and swings and songs?"
When my eyes close and my brow furrows in concentration to hear the subtleties within the richness of a new piece of orchestral music, I thank Him for music and I wonder in awe at the richness of the creativity of the Being behind it all.
When I walk home from the market, see storm clouds coming, and hear the sound of thunder rumbling deep and powerful like a growling cosmic dog, my pulse quickens as I realize this is just a glimmer of the most powerful of storms and the most powerful of storms is just a far-off coruscation of the power of God.
When, in the middle of a busy day, I tell my husband my back hurts from scrubbing black mold off the walls the day before and he massages the sore spots, I thank Him for Michael and wonder, "How tender and good must be the Being who thought up the tender, loving care of a good husband?"
This Thanksgiving, by all means, be thankful for all you have. Then, marvel at how all those things are but a brief glimmer of the good, good Father behind it all.
My blog looks prettier! This weekend, I was venting all of my frustrations with blogger to Michael. I had ideas of what I wanted my blog to look like but felt like my hands were tied by the limited editing options within the finite set of templates. He opened the code (or HTML? or CSS? or something like that), listened to me voice my complaints (i.e. "I don't like the shadow thingy behind the pictures."), and fixed them. And boy does it look snazzy now! It's clean, simple, the font is more legible, and the pictures really fill the space.
Allow me to take advantage of this pretty space by leaving you with a photo I took a few weeks ago while on a walk and a beautiful quote on the art of writing that I stumbled upon this weekend.
"To keep an idea living, intact, tinged with all its original feeling, its original mood, preserving in it all the ecstasy which attended its birth, to keep it so all the way from the brain to the hand and transfer it on paper a living thing with color, odor, sound, life all in it, that is what art means..." ~Willa Cather
