Can I ever! One of the difficulties of a career is that so often work is like walking through a swamp in white clothes while trying not to get dirty.
Kintsugi is a Japanese art form where broken pots are mended by filling in cracks with an amalgam mixed with powdered gold. This is what God does for us.
Listening to the news puts the weight of the world on our shoulders. It brings us to the same questions Habakkuk asked.
Theodicy - a justification of how God works with humanity.
Habakkuk is unique - the whole book is a prayer. Other prophets bring God's word to the people. Habakkuk brings the people's questions to God.
Three Keys to Prayer:
Be Human - It is okay to be ourselves in prayer. Perhaps the parable Jesus told about the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector touches on this - the Pharisee was playing a role, the tax collector was being honest - being human.
Crying out because it's not fair is part of the human condition; but, we don't want to stay there.
How do we respond when God's answers to our prayers don't meet our expectations? We have to allow God to be God.
Be Humble - Prayer should be humble. Listen to God. Let God be God. Ask for help with understanding. Prayer like this changes our hearts.
It's okay to not be okay with certain situations - but we don't want to stay there. Humble prayer changes us. Sometimes it's not the outside world that is changed, but, our perspective.
Prayer is not just about changing reality - it's changing how we see reality.
Be Honoring - May our prayers become songs and our songs become prayer.
Sometimes we are overwhelmed by our situations - we should not be awed by the enormity of our situation - we should be awed by the enormity of our God.
Give our minds as well as our hearts to God.
If we stay in a place of not understanding God, then we will probably continue to not understand.
When we meditate on God stories, we'll see God stories. A nudge to write "God stories" perhaps?
The last word:
You know I love the part about the mended pots being fixed with an amalgam of powdered gold! All us 'cracked pots' can take heart, lol
ReplyDeleteThe 3 part advice on how to approach God in prayer rang true to me. We do have to be human, be ourselves be honest with Him and ourselves, while remaining humble, and hopefully transitioning into honoring before we close. There is just something powerful and uplifting about "praising God anyway," in the midst of your troubling/tiring/tedious circumstances.
I am struck too by the repeated admonitions not to "stay there," while expressing our doubts, fears, anger. Acknowledge them and move on. How many people do we know who have camped out in that particular bit of real estate? Having failed to move on, literally, they are not only stuck there, but...inadvertently drive others away, because nobody wants to hear their lamentations and complaints...
Thank you for sharing!