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I’m drowning in piles of things to read and file and projects begun and unfinished. There are many things I had hoped to get to this summer at home and at work, especially these days with the boys away at camp. I planned to give myself to the much-needed pruning as well, but new life keeps sprouting and calling for attention. In following you, I get myself into waters that I can’t always stand in. I get over my head trying to do the loving things. By now, almost 50, I know myself, know this tendency… So what about you? Were you exhausted after you ‘dismissed the crowds?’ Matthew writes that you ‘made’ the disciples head over to the other side of the sea ahead of you. Did they want to stay and pray with you? Did you crave alone time to recover? Your example of assertiveness is good to see. How wise of you to enter silence before facing the desires and needs of the people you would touch in Gennesaret. Of all the richness in this familiar, powerful gospel story of encouragement, it is this example of your taking time to pray that I most give thanks for. Thank you for this nudge to retreat, to re-member and re-order inside so that the outside piles can find their rightful places and the projects come to fruition in you. Lord, teach me to pray, to deepen my own surrender, and over the sound of the winds of all my busyness, be able to hear your authoritative call to risk, to trust, to come. |