a semblance of knowing.

Through a profound rhythm of journeying, encountering sites of pain and hope, engaging the history and culture, serving and being present with those on the margins, worshiping, resting and reflecting (a critical piece often overlooked on traditional “mission trips”), pilgrims are slowly confronted by a different world that begins to interrupt their own. Pilgrimage is a posture very different from mission. The goal of a pilgrim is not to solve but to search, not so much to help as to be present. Pilgrims do not rush to a goal, but slow down to hear the crying. They are not as interested in making a difference as they are in making new friends. The pace is slower, more reflective.
Pilgrims set out not so much to assist strangers but to eat with them. They journey in the wisdom about transformation held in the Rwandan proverb “If you cannot hear the mouth eating, you cannot hear the mouth crying.” There are so many efforts to make a difference that do not make us different. It is not the people who paint a house in a strange place but rather the people who make friends and are transformed who make the deeper difference over the long haul. Pilgrims return home as new people. Changed by their journeys, they change the world where they live.

-Reconciling all Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing

Particularly moved by today’s Elisabeth Elliot devotional that popped into my mailbox. I often don’t read them, but I’m glad I did today. As I have been learning of late about setting boundaries – being responsible for what is mine and leaving what is not, I think an element of this I overlooked is time. I am responsible for today only. I should not steal tomorrow from God. That will only neglect what is mine – today.

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart

Do Not Forecast Grief

Sitting one still and sunny afternoon in a tiny chapel on an island in the South, I thought I heard someone enter. A young woman was weeping quietly. After a little time I asked if I could help. She confided her fears for the future–what if her husband should die? Or one of her children? What if money ran out?

All our fears represent in some form, I believe, the fear of death, common to all of us. But is it our business to pry into what may happen tomorrow? It is a difficult and painful exercise which saps the strength and uses up the time given us today. Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us–tomorrow? Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what wil1 happen, never mind what may happen. When we prayed “Thy will be done,” did we suppose He did not hear us? He heard indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives. If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!

Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”–and the work thereof. The evil is not a part of the yoke Jesus asks us to take. Our work is, and He takes that yoke with us. I will overextend myself if I assume anything more.

God chains the dog till night; wilt loose the chain
And wake thy sorrow?
Wilt thou forestall it, and now grieve tomorrow,
And then again
Grieve over freshly all thy pain?
Either grief will not come, or if it must,
Do not forecast;
And while it cometh, it is almost past.
Away, distrust;
My God hath promis’d; He is just.
–George Herbert, “The Discharge”

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
(Psalm 16:5-6)

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18)

Guilt can be a terrible taskmaster. Don’t let it render you ineffective. Forgive yourself. Move on. Wallowing on the spot is the ultimate expression of not having a choice. We always have a choice for good. It is the ability to choose that makes us human. Embrace the choice, it’s your gift and responsibility.