January 18, 2007

• blasphemy

  This morning I read about Jesus multiplying 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish for 4000+ people and was struck by the statement He made:  "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.  If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way..."  (Mark 8)  The word "compassion" really strikes me.  Jesus was unwilling to send them away without providing for their needs -- lest they collapse. 

  I love the gospels because I get to know a God who is larger than life 'in-the-flesh', who shows Himself to be so deeply personal and so deeply loving.  I am reminded over and over again that One who has power and authority over the demons who haunt, taunt and persecute and wind and waves that batter at my boat also feels love, compassion and grief for lowly prostitutes like me.

  I need the reminder because my ability to see the eternal and the good is so often obscured.  It's so easy for me to forget the truth of Jesus' love and power... so easy, even in my praying, to forget that He can and is willing to answer.  I used to have more endurance before.  I could pray longer and wait longer - even though nothing happened.  But these days, I am so impatient, and I tire so easily of the labor of prayer.  Is prayer supposed to feel so laborious?  All of life feels like a waiting room.  I am so powerless to bring about spiritual change in others.  Only God can do it.  And in His sovereignty, He chooses to withhold - for now.  I have no doubt that He knows best, but somehow in all the waiting and seeming silence, it's easy to begin to wonder in a completely blasphemous way whether God is impotent...  which's recognition only serves to drive me to humble contrition and more desperate prayers.

  • 7:04 pm
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