Weekly Readings Reflections: Holy Family

Our readings for Holy Family Jesus, Mary & Joseph are:

I sometimes wonder what Abraham might have been like in person. To the point, no pulled punches, no hesitation to speak his mind, probably not someone that you would take to a social gathering. He'd quickly antagonize most of the people there.
When you pray, does God ever tell you something preposterous?
What makes some of those things that God has told you hard to own, to believe?
How did you let God know about your feelings?
How did God respond to that honesty on your part?

In our Western culture, especially here in the USA, we have a very short memory. It's all about "what have you done for me lately?" The Eastern mindset that the Hebrews spring from sees history in terms of millennia. By the time that Jesus arrived, thoughtful Jews were despairing of the greatness that God had foretold because it was so long coming. Hope endures forever because He whom we hope in is forever.
How has God shown His faithfulness to you in your life?
How often do you get the chance to share that experience with others?
How does that experience shape your hope for the future?
How should it?

Thinking is something that I find enjoyable. When someone tries to tell me not to overthink something, I have a hard time with that. I'm learning that my intellect is a fragile thing, and given family history, is quite likely to desert me years before I die. So I want to savor it while I still can. Abraham had a thorny problem to solve. God asked Him to sacrifice his son Isaac, but clearly this son of promise was how God was going to fulfill His promises to Abraham.
Clearly God gave you many gifts: heart, soul, body, mind, voice, deep intuition, and many more. No one of those will equip you for the call that God has on your life. How do your head and heart work together to bring you closer to God?

Waiting involves creative tension. On the one hand, waiting calls for faith that the passage of time is accomplishing something, that forces unseen and unknown are at work, just over the horizon. At the same time, waiting calls for readiness, diligence, discipline that brings peace rather than stress. Peace that comes because of purpose and expectation, rather than stress that is restless with no clear goal or objective. In a way, we are all Adventing throughout life.
What is some time in your life when you had to wait for something to come to fruition from God?
When that wait came to an end, how did you know?
What was accomplished in, and through that waiting?
How did you find the faith for that wait?

Let Your Servant Go in Peace

I have been lonely for a long long time now.
All of my childhood friends are long dead.
Most of the people my children's ages are dead or dying.

I have struggled to make new friends
Even while missing and morning the old ones.
Because I didn't want to find myself totally cut off.

Keeping watch for the Messiah.

Holding fast to the urgency of His coming.

Fanning the all but gone flames of expectation.

Serving as the light of longing

To God's sleeping chosen.

Mired down in the tar of "just getting by".

And now I see Him before me.

The one to carry the torch after me.

The fulfillment of the promise -

The font of our hope of renewal.

I only hope that there are still those

Who are looking, longing, thirsting ...

For God to ignite their lives with His Presence.

Give them the courage to hope.

Power to heal.

Shalom!

Weekly Readings Reflections