Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Let my cry come to you

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

From Numbers 21
With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses.

We can stand it only so long. And then our patience just runs out, like sand in an unwatched hourglass.

In an election, this is when the other party wins. Or revolution takes root. Or anarchy has its day. Peter Finch told us all to holler out our windows at 5 pm, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" The Israelites grumbled loudly, "We are disgusted with this wretched food!"

Patience is how we hold still till we know what's happening. It's not passive, it's not wimpy, but it is still. Paul tells us, "Clothe yourselves with patience." Aquinas calls patience one of the faces of fortitude, required to live life to the fullest. In Transforming Our Painful Emotions, the Whiteheads are sure that this transformation is "anchored in the difficult virtue of patience."

The Whiteheads point out the Chinese character translated "patience" is a knife poised above a heart. Is this a murder or surgical salvation? Should I flee? Or can I wait to see if I should stay, "opening myself to a painful purification that may save my life?"

Jesus spoke often of his intimacy with Abba. From today's Gospel, "I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him."

How did Jesus do it? When I sit and pray, sit and listen, I lose track and my mind flits like monkeys in the trees, and I want to move around ... in short, my patience wanes. It flies away. I stop listening for my Father's voice because I start listening to my own. Jesus was amazing.

The Whiteheads write, "Patience prepares us to live our life wide awake, to taste our negative emotions rather than simply swallowing our pain." Or spitting it out all over somebody else, I might add.

Patience for me is as much physical as it is a matter of will or emotion. When I feel a need to be more still, I notice that I sit up more straight. In that posture, I can take deeper breaths. I close my eyes. I listen to the sound of my breathing. This is what I'd like to do longer, but it's good at least that I get started. It is from this kind of stillness that patience grows.

Outside this afternoon I hear the sound of an owl. I hear that owl often. His cry rises in my mind and calls me into rest. But is he impatient for the night to come? He has awakened, and he's hungry.

Wo don't live only for ourselves, O Lord. We dream for the children and their children's children. "Let his future creatures praise the Lord!" This moment of this day settles into its place, one domino that makes the next one fall, and then the next, and then ... Restore unto me the joy of my salvation. O Lord, hear our prayer, and let our cries come to you.

Devotions Archive

Let my cry come to you

Tuesday, April 4, 2017