Slow Down: God is Watching

Driving in Southern California traffic can turn a perfectly calm normal person to an impatient, and angry,  driver.  People slamming their breaks on while texting on the freeway, drivers waiting for the last possible moment to cut in to an onramp and thus making those following them slamming on their breaks to avoid a collision.  Not to mention the aggressive driver who flies up behind you, causing you to brace for the impending rear-end collision or those who just don't seem to know how to drive in the rain (too fast or too slow).  So what does this have to do with God?

Leaving work today I found myself caught in the usual traffic snarls which have a tendency to grind on my nerves.  I would just like to get home without slowing down to a two to three mile 30 mph crawl.  Not happening today.  Traffic was first fast and then slow and then fast again.  Isn't this a reflection of life? Upon getting on the freeway and honking on my horn  a few minutes earlier at someone who was probably lost and tried to cut in on a clogged onramp I proceeded my journey.  Later realizing that this person had out of state plates and was confused, I said a quick prayer.

Fifteen minutes later 10 minutes from home a distracted driver continues to slam their breaks on causing me to become incensed and flash my lights in an attempt to get them to move.  God had other plans.  Within a mile traffic comes to a grinding halt.  Close to home, I know the exits well and proceeded to find one close to home.  Moving across lanes, I try to navigate into the far right lane to exit and a person in a Porsche speeds up so I cannot immediately exit and than slows down to let me in.  I still have seen the picture yet.  Exiting I come upon a homeless person who is asking for money.  Slow down, is this the face of Christ? When did I see you when you were hungry? Always carrying a Granola bar for this occasion I realized that this was a message prepared for me.  Slow down, see my face among you.  I quickly gave the man the bar before the light changed and rejoiced in God;s humor as well as laughed at my insane actions during my journey.

Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on Me a Sinner

Reflecting on John Michael Talbot's book, Nothing is Impossible with God, I have found a profound connection with this past week's readings.  Talbot dedicates multiple chapters on the rosary as well as the Jesus Prayer.  This prayer I uttered many times without contemplating its deeper meaning.  As a teenager my mother gave me a book of prayers for college students.  The one prayer that stood out was the Jesus Prayer and I would revisit it in some of my difficult times.

From Tuesday's readings I find Azariah pleading, "Do not take away your mercy from us," as he endured the fire and then again Peter asking the Lord about a brother who sins against him. Jesus reply was we know "seventy-seven times." Putting that in perspective for myself who in my human sinful condition can replay harms or what I might perceive as harms over and over again, can easily forget the term mercy.

Thursday we are taken to the Gospel of Luke where Jesus instructs the hardened hearts of those who were looking to test him by stating the house divided against itself will fall." As a teacher and student of history this passage has always appealed to me as it is the very message Lincoln used in his speech to the Illinois Republican Convention in 1858 as the United States inched closer to war over the slavery issue.  But from a very personal perspective I find that this house is myself in my duplicitous nature. Trying to carry out the will of God is challenging at times and I am quite quick to impose my will on situations.  I am part of the group  Jeremiah says are those stiff necked people. However, there seems to that inner voice that brings me back to the Jesus Prayer. "Harden not your hearts,"  the psalmist cries.

Talbot's dissection of the Jesus Prayer has brought a clearer understanding of the mercy of God. understanding the deeper context of the meaning of each of the words in the prayer and the Greek translation has opened my eyes to the need of not only for  God's  mercy on me, but for me not rely on my own abilities to be merciful.  My prayer is "Grant that I have mercy on those around me as you have had mercy on me.

I Rescue Them When It Is Cloudy and Dark

In Ezekiel 34:11-14 we hear the Lord say "I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark." In today's reading the image of the good shepherd is projected in Micah and the Gospel reading from Luke.  When are we rescued? Do we have to be as the prodigal son and go to the depths of darkness before we realize that there is a better way? Many of us have ventured into the darkness of the world in search of a better life only to find that we were delusional. What we found was an unrelenting emptiness as the search of riches and gratification was pursued. Prayers seemed to go unanswered.  As the son stated in Luke when he comes to he senses and realizes that he truly has nothing "here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father." You know the rest of the story.

It is at this point that in our human nature we may have hit that proverbial bottom than we are ready to give up our way of life for a better way.  For some it may come after many years of internal personal battles. For others it may come after a life changing event.  Whatever the case the Lord is ready when we are.  Those cries of desperation are now answered. "I cry aloud to God, cry aloud to God that he may hear me, " says the psalmist. The Lord in his infinite mercy has heard our cry. The darkness and clouds dissipate. The sun shines and a new life is found.  Only that we remember that this must be a daily cry in our venture in the world of darkness. We become the light as Christ shines through us to others who may have endured a similar plight in their journey.