prayer

So much to update in just a couple of days....

Our pastors often write prayers for the services at church, and sometimes they quote prayers from amazing sources. Last week it was the latter, as they took the following prayer from Prayers and Litanies by Sharlande Sledge. Here is the part I found most interesting:

God, who loves the world so much,
We come to meet you here,
Knowing not only that we are loved by you
But also knowing that we have so much love to give away.

Help us decide what to do with this precious gift.
We can hold it tightly instead of loving other people.
We can clutch your steadfast love to ourselves
Or we can open our hands to see where your love will take us.

That's risky, God.
It may take us to places we do not want to go.
It may call for confidence and strength we do not think we have.

O, God, we have so much to repent
About the times we have not loved,
And so much love to give away.
Free us to open the heart's door,
So you may enter and begin building your kingdom within.

Amen.

One of the most common statements we ever hear is, "You can't be too careful." It is why we put up with the additional security at airports and sporting events and schools in this new world where terrorism has happened within our borders. It is why we have ratings on our television shows - we don't want to expose children to sex and violence, and so we protect them because we can't be too careful when it comes to our children.

But there are plenty of times when we can be too careful. We can be too careful when we see a stranger in need. It is what the Levite did in the Good Samaritan story. He isn't supposed to touch a corpse under Jewish law, and the man is lying on the side of the road, perhaps dead. Well, he can't be too careful? How many times have I crossed the street because I didn't want to be asked for change? Because I didn't want to confront the need of another human being. The answer is certainly more than I would care to admit.

And how many times have I put up walls to relationships because I was afraid to be vulnerable? It has been, for me, simply the biggest obstacle to dating again. How do I allow myself to be vulnerable in a relationship because that vulnerability could lead to pain. We look at marriage and we used to be afraid about the 50% of marriages that end in divorce. Well, the other 50% end in death, and that is none too pleasant. And so it is perhaps easier to keep those walls up, to be too careful, to be unwilling to be vulnerable enough for love to happen again.

I have never met a widow who thought it wasn't worth it. One of my best friends was married a month before her husband was taken from her. Hardly seems worth it to me, looking on from the outside. Even when you consider the two years they were together before marriage. But she wouldn't trade any of it for removing that pain from her life. Never met one who would.

So why are we so unwilling as a group to risk again when we look back to our previous marriages and say it was all worth it? I think the answer is that we know what the bad stuff will be like at the end, either for us or for our spouse, but that we can't know the good stuff yet. It is a betrayal of our late spouse to think that any old person we find to marry will give us the kind of love and joy that she did. As if we would marry any old person. So we allow ourselves to worry about the bad stuff without giving due consideration to the good stuff. We are so easily out of balance in a way that makes us too careful.

Dear God, let me not be so careful that I allow opportunities for fellowship and for love pass by me without another look for fear of the pain that sometimes inhabits this life.

Curtis