When we sit along Kauai’s south shore with vacationers from all over the world, gathering night after night to enjoy the beauty of sunset, I know why everyone is there. We love the beauty of the changing sunset colors; we delight to watch the sea turtles come ashore to rest. It’s mesmerizing. Simply gorgeous. For my husband and me, it’s also holy.
I’ve been on a journey these past two years. I’ve found new ways to pray as I’ve come to understand more about the theology of our Creator, his creation, and how joy, beauty, and light are gifts our Creator God gives to us. I’ll be sharing my journey on my blog. I hope you’ll walk with me and discover new ways to pray.
I’ve come to understand God longs for us to look beyond joy and beauty to see him, our Savior, the Giver of all good gifts.
I have found that when my mind cannot engage with the Bible or come up with words to pray, I can still pray with joy in my heart. I now know how to let joy and beauty lead me to Jesus.
I watch the news and listen to the stories of the pandemic and feel the heartbreak of so many people here and around the world, I am so sad. I'm just holding my breath for the people in refugee camps and for the people in India, as well as the people who are losing loved ones and suffering with this virus here in the U.S. Sadness upon sadness. It is truly unbelievable to watch this modern-day plague unfold.
I heard Gov. Cuomo say yesterday that it's like we're stuck in a bad version of the movie, Ground Hog Day. Isn't that the truth. Every morning we get up to do it all over again.
For me, coming up with explanations for why God is allowing this, or postulating on how it will be beneficial, is not helpful. At this point, I just want to draw near to the Lord in silence and sorrow and ask for help.
This week as part of my Lenten devotions, I've been reflecting on Jesus' last 24 hours and the invitation that I'm hearing from him comes from the first part of his mandate to Peter, James and John. "Watch and pray..." And I've been wondering what they were to watch...was Jesus asking them to watch for strangers coming into the Garden, was he asking them to watch for Judas and the 600 soldiers? Perhaps. But my hunch is that the approach of 600 soldiers with the light of their torches and the sounds of their boots marching across the Kedron Valley would have been obvious. So perhaps he wanted them to watch for something else.
As I pondered this, the Lord’s invitation to me, is to watch him…watch Jesus wrestle with the Father in the Garden...watch. Part of my watching involved trying to watercolor what I imagined…a form of Visio Divina.
So I've been watching him (in part in the Word and in part through painting and looking at art) and what has been standing out for me is that I am watching Jesus trusting his Father. He knew the character of the Father. All of the truths of theology are the truths that Jesus knew. He was anchored to them...and as we watch him agonize in prayer we see what it looks like to be grounded in truth, the truth of who our God is. When we know God, then we can fully put our hope in him and stand firm when everything around us is falling apart. I think that the invitation to me is to know the Father's goodness and sovereignty and love the way Jesus knew it, so that as I watch him wrestle to the ground all that was going on within him, I can learn from him how to find my peace in the middle of the storm.
Are there prerequisites for Christian ministry? I think so.
Jesus really wants us to know His love. When we get to heaven, I think He will ask us, “Did you know that I loved you?” He wants us to float in the river that is His love. He doesn’t want us to just stand alongside the bank of the river getting splashed every so often. He wants us to jump in, be fully immersed, letting the current carry us downstream. That's a prereq for ministry.
Moses begins his psalm, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations..." Moses did not say that he lived in the palace in Egypt, nor the backcountry of Arabia, nor the desert and crags of Sinai, but the Lord was his dwelling place. It seems that if I could learn a little bit about what it means to dwell with the Lord, then I wouldn't get so tossed about in the turbulence of life.
©Copyright 2024 Luann Budd / Journal Keeping
Photography by Luann Budd
