Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Dreading Something This Week?


I've been home these days, recovering from a bout with bronchitis (feeling better today). It's made me stay home, rest, and about all I've been able "to do" is read and pray (it's been painful to do that with beautiful days crying out, "this is the day the Lord has made, go forth and golf in it").

Anyway, I'm reading Philip Yancey's book on Prayer and a passage this morning struck a particular chord with me, and perhaps will with you. There have been times in the past when I have wrestled with something I needed to do, or a conversation with someone I needed to have; wrestled with it, and at times, dreaded it. I've used up energy putting off addressing whatever it is, all the while imagining how conversations and encounters would go in my head.

Yancey speaks to that kind of week when he writes:

"If I remember (and I blush at how often I forget), I can commit to God in advance a difficult letter I must answer, a thorny problem I must deal with in my writing, a nagging physical ailment, a phone call to a needy relative, a social engagement I dread. The very process of presenting these requests to God puts me in a different frame of mind before the event. And if I remember to pause afterward and reflect on what happened, often the traces of God appear, seen not by proof but by faith."

Got something this week you're not looking forward to? Dreading? Putting off? In times like these, let's encourage each other to take these things to God in prayer, even if we don't "feel" like it, even if we don't "feel full of faith" as we do so. It'll be interesting to see, looking back, how many "traces of God appear."

Love you all, and praying for you to not miss anything God has for you this week.

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