The Breathless Anticipation of Easter Saturday

Day Fourteen

There is something so beautiful about waiting.  Hey!  I can’t believe I wrote that!  If you read my first book, Look, Listen, Love, I go on for several chapters lamenting the wait for my camper van to be ready.  But really, when you think of it, it’s true.  When you’re waiting for something good—something that is certain to happen—you start to actually enjoy it in the period of anticipation.  Your imagination begins to take hold of the idea, imagining how you will have it in your hands.

Pregnancy is one of those times.  You start to imagine what it will be like to finally hold that baby in your arms, to feel the softness of the baby’s skin on your cheek, to smell the fresh smell of the baby after his or her bath.  I didn’t want to know the sex of my babies before they were born.  That’s like peeking at your Christmas presents a week before Christmas.  Once I did peek at a Christmas present that wasn’t well wrapped.  On Christmas morning all the fun and surprise was gone for that particular gift.  I’ve never understood people who peek or who ask the baby’s sex.

I imagine the disciples on Easter Saturday.  What a sad day for them!  Jesus had repeatedly assured them that He would rise on the 3^rd day.  They had seen Him raise people from the dead, but they were so stuck in their old mindset that they couldn’t imagine the resurrection.  Instead of enjoying the anticipation of Easter Sunday, they were fixated on Crucifixion Friday and their sorrow and loss.

For me, this time of waiting, fasting, and praying for my answer is a time of breathless anticipation.  Unlike the disciples, I have the sure and certain hope of getting the answer.  So instead of mourning my loss (in this case, solid food), I am getting ready to receive my answer.  Today begins the last week of my fast, and I am so excited that I can hardly stand it.  I do feel like a child the week before Christmas or a mother in the last month of pregnancy.  My answer will come, and I am thoroughly enjoying the wait.  God is good!

Finding My Place

Day Thirteen

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. . . . How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven,” (Genesis 28:16-17).

This past year has been a time of finding my place.  From the time I arrived back in Milan a year ago, I started praying for, looking for, and fasting for an apartment—the very apartment that I am now sitting in.  The work on the apartment and its furnishings has gone forward very quickly after a long winter pause.  Soon I should be able to have a grand opening party.  I hope that my website will be up by then.

I sold my house in Texas (and most of the stuff in it) since I spend most of my time in Italy nowadays.  I returned to Texas in August to help my mom move to North Carolina, where my brother had relocated after the wildfire took virtually everything he owned.  Now when I return to the US, I live with my mom in a retirement complex in North Carolina.  In her apartment I have my own room, but couldn’t find a comfortable place to pray.  One day I discovered that the chapel benches are just the right height for praying on your knees.  Plus, you are assured of privacy virtually any time of the day, since the chapel is only used a few times a week.

Back here in Milan, my bed is also a good height for kneeling to pray.  But during this fast, I spend so much time in prayer that even a comfortable position eventually becomes uncomfortable.  The other day I saw an Ikea catalog, and remembered fondly my bouncy Poang easy chair.  After abdominal surgery I bounced myself to recovery in that chair.  And, well, hey!  I like to rock and bounce, it’s relaxing.  So I ordered a Poang for the apartment.  It arrived today, and all other activity stopped while Manuel and I assembled it, and Nina looked on.  Once assembled, we each took a turn sitting and bouncing in the chair.  Manuel quizzed me about the price, and decided that he had to have one, also.

One thing that a nice bouncy (or rocking) chair is good for is praying.  Back at Mom’s apartment, I have an easy chair that rocks.  It is a great place to pray when the dogs are asleep (Mom has 3) and Mom is reading or doing something else that is quiet.

This afternoon I had a prayer session in the new chair and found myself, um, “resting in the Lord.”  Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.  God is not a father that would ever push a sleeping child out of His lap.  I’m not recommending sleeping over prayer, either.  But on those occasions when sleep does overtake you, enjoy a nice nap in the Father’s arms.  I feel like I’ve truly found my place at last!  God is good!

Contrarian Kingdom

When I was growing up in the 1960’s the popular wisdom was to life a lifestyle of non-conformity.  The youth of those days could see that the so-called wisdom of previous generations had landed us into an unwinnable war in Vietnam, and many of us saw our fathers slaving away their hours at jobs that took them from the family at least eight hours a day, and left them too exhausted to do anything but veg-out in front of the TV at night watching the banalities of the day.

So in the 60’s youth culture non-conformity meant never trusting “The Establishment” or “The Man.”  Non-conformity meant a carefree lifestyle, living fully in the moment, day-by-day.

Come to think of it, not much has changed, except that things have gotten even worse.  Now we are in an unwinnable war against terrorism (how do you fight a concept?), and mothers have joined fathers in working themselves to exhaustion.  Television has also gotten worse.  Now (with a few exceptions) banality is the best one can hope for.  Some popular shows are offensive and actually harmful (IMHO).  Reality TV shows mostly bring out the very worst in people, who are willing to do just about anything to have their 15 minutes of fame.

And the worst part of all this?  The Establishment is now composed of the very same people who embraced non-conformity back in the 1960’s.  The long-haired, peace-loving kid of the 60’s is now The Man.

How did this happen?  In a word:  money.  The truth is that without money, life is very difficult, if not impossible.  Many of the youth of the 60’s came to the conclusion that a carefree lifestyle is impossible without money.  Little by little those carefree kids became slaves to money.

But the original concept of a carefree life of non-conformity was and is right.  And it is only achievable by living a life that is fully surrendered to Jesus.  Check it out:

Fear [reverently respect] the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.  Psalm 34:9

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4

Some people think that God is stingy.  God isn’t stingy at all, we’re the stingy ones.  God is generous.  Read yesterday’s post, if you don’t believe me:  https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.  I took Him at His Word, and He proved it to me.

If you want to live that carefree, non-conformist lifestyle, put God and His Kingdom first.