Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
(from the Book of Common Prayer)
26 Look at the birds in the sky. They do not store food for winter. They don’t plant gardens. They do not sow or reap—and yet, they are always fed because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are even more precious to Him than a beautiful bird. If He looks after them, of course He will look after you.
Matthew 6:26The Voice (VOICE)
***
Control and Certainty and I have a complicated relationship.
Throw prayer into the mix and it is just a great big ball of hot sticky wax.
Today specifically there is a healthy dose of uncertainty in my life and I am a bit of an antsy hot mess because of the lack of control that I have over it.
Even the control I do have – the decisions I can make – are unsatisfactory to me.
Which leaves me feeling convicted and petulant simultaneously.
I am petulant because I think I know what I want and how I want it.
I am convicted because in truth I know better.
I know that if I will back off things will shake out as they should, because that is the pattern of my life.
***
I have a kid who has a bottomless desire for sugar.
He has no ability to self-regulate or monitor this.
We have to be careful how we guide him about his choices because I do not want it to become a body-image issue.
I do not want to hear him saying that we think he is Fat.
Because we don’t.
And because in our society that is death to a kids self-esteem.
And as sensitive and perceptive as he is, he doesn’t need any help figuring out how he is different. He is more than well aware.
But he cannot consume the amount of sugar he wants without killing his body.
And as his parents we have to find ways to help him curb this desire until he is old enough to curb it himself.
We have discussions about health, we save dessert for special occasions, and we say No a lot more than we would like. Which can be annoying for all of us, but is still necessary.
Because he ask all the time.
***
I wonder if I ask all the time.
I wonder if I want more than I need at this moment.
No I don’t wonder. I know.
The truth is that I would gorge myself on All the Things I Want if left to my own devices,
Killing some part of my soul unwittingly.
***
I am trying a new way of prayer.
I am trying to look for God and keep a record of all the places I find him.
I am trying to take my eyes off of what I want and instead put them onto what is already.
Onto God and all the ways he makes himself known.
This morning as I drove to work through some back country roads I saw bird after bird flitting about on their morning hunt.
They flew over my car, and onto bar roofs, and off of telephone lines.
and I had this thought:
“Today the birds are not hungry. If the birds are hungry tomorrow I will fret about how It Will All Turn Out. But today the birds are not hungry.”
Today I found God in the flitting of the birds.
I did not find control or certainty, but I found some smidgen of peace that I didn’t have before.
And I know enough to know that even a smidge of peace is the better gift.
xoxo
J
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