Life's Designs

I live a very safe life “in the shadow of God’s wings.” I gather with the rest of the brood regularly, yet wonder if God’s pleased with my worship. I conduct activity that keeps God alive in me—morning prayer, evening prayer—in between these weekly occasions of corporate prayer on Sundays, but then have to work hard to conjure up his presence when not consciously communing with him. Where did I leave him during those hours? I know I’m deep in the water of Christian faith, that I’ve walked with Jesus into those waters, over my head in them. I know what that’s supposed to mean and I try to make that meaning reality, yet knowing and being don’t always merge into one.

From my first sermon when I was fifteen years old to my current global missions leadership in a local church at seventy-seven, I’ve spent a lifetime in Christian vocation being a specialist of one kind or another—pastor, missionary, student minister, college and seminary professor, missions administrator. Yet, my orthodoxy doesn’t always meet orthopraxy.  I don’t always arrive at the place where life and faith intersect, the objective of so many of my sermons and Bible studies.

I may be a specialist at any moment, but I live most of life as a generalist, a wanna be, an amateur, sitting on the sidelines always wanting to get in the game. And when I do engage, it’s as though I’ve entered an unpopular game that no one is interested in playing. People say my game was won long ago, and there are new games on the table now. It’s not that faith goes unchallenged; it’s just left alone. All I have to do is coast through until the next time I join believers in the worship of God—or, hopefully, this evening’s prayer in my fourth-floor condo—when I warm over my connection with God.

The weeks roll by—the worship of God on Sundays, morning and evening prayers each day through the week. Yet, there are occasional moments in between intentional public or private spiritual engagement with God when faith in God and life in human relationship intersect in the brush of an angel’s wing, a visitation from on high like a dove landing on my shoulder, and the game is filled with meaning again. I say, “yes” with a holy fist pump. With renewed step I reenter my walk between Morning and Evening Prayer, and Jesus walks beside me.