Striving, hoping, and waiting

You long for something you don’t have, so you commit murder. You are jealous for something you can’t get, so you struggle and fight. You don’t have because you don’t ask. You ask and don’t have because you ask with evil intentions, to waste it on your own cravings. James 4:2-3 CEB

When I was young, I tried to solve my prayer problems with hard work.

I continued to redouble my efforts because I was convinced that my evil intentions in prayer were the cause of my desert-like prayer experience. But I also began to question my own prayer posture. The more I read and studied, the less convinced I was that God’s greatest desire for me was to feed him a list of requests, let’s be honest - demands, for how he was to show up and work in the world.

I continued this elaborate ritual of prayer but all joy drained from the experience; even my school supplies could not comfort me.

In 1986 my brother got sober; to support him, I began to embrace the 12 steps. Step 11 blew me away. Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out.

What do you notice about this prayer? What is the objective of this step? What is promised? What is not promised? I thought prayer was about solving problems and feeling better. It was a relief to discover that prayer was possible and even sacred without solving a particular problem and even if I did not feel better as a result of my prayer efforts.

Hoping and Waiting

The eleventh step radically changed my perspective on prayer and meditation. I sorely needed a readjustment. Historically, I have proven time and again that I am capable of misinterpreting the scriptures.

“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door is opened. Matthew 7:7-8 CEB

Early on in my faith journey, I developed a system of praying that looked more like a strategic plan then sacred time spent with God. I organized my prayer requests in an elaborate system of checks and balances so that I would not forget to ask, seek, and knock so that I might receive and find.

It was tiring.

As much as I enjoyed the school supplies I used as my prayer tools and the structure of rigorous and daily asking and seeking, I felt something was missing.

Do you ever feel that something is missing when it comes to prayer?

Why NOT me?

36-39 As they continued down the road, they came to a stream of water. The eunuch said, “Here’s water. Why can’t I be baptized?” He ordered the chariot to stop. They both went down to the water, and Philip baptized him on the spot. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God suddenly took Philip off, and that was the last the eunuch saw of him. But he didn’t mind. He had what he’d come for and went on down the road as happy as he could be. 40 Philip showed up in Azotus and continued north, preaching the Message in all the villages along that route until he arrived at Caesarea.

Acts 8:36-40 MSG

Luke is such a creative story teller! What a fantastic narrative! Chariots and men running beside them. Philip talking to angels and being swept off by the Spirit of God - high drama. But also something else quite lovely. “Why can’t I be baptized?” asks the eunuch. This is a question of such hope! Frankly, there were a ton of reasons why someone might consider eunuch unfit for time, attention or baptism.

He was not an Israelite. He was a foreigner - Ethiopian. He was castrated in a world that values a family that has many arrows in their quiver - as the old saying goes. He just wasn’t the guy that God’s chosen people would have noticed. He didn’t seem like the kind of person God would choose. Time and again, God says, “I choose all people.”

I hear stories every week from people who do not feel chosen. I witness folks who behave in ways that indicates to me that they are primed to feel rejected. Often it appears to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy for people who seem pre-wired in every situation to feel left out and alone and seem to hone in on any perceived slight as a reason to confirm their belief that they are not “good enough.” The eunuch asks a question that implies a state of mind - I do belong. I can be part of. I will get baptized! Today - what can you believe in about yourself in light of who God is and how he provides?

What about us is the same?

29-30 The Spirit told Philip, “Climb into the chariot.” Running up alongside, Philip heard the eunuch reading Isaiah and asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

31-33 He answered, “How can I without some help?” and invited Philip into the chariot with him.

Philips helps the eunuch. He helps a servant. He helps a man that society was willing to mutilate so that he might work more efficiently. This is how God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, his angels and his people think.

The passage he was reading was this:

As a sheep led to slaughter,

and quiet as a lamb being sheared,

He was silent, saying nothing.

He was mocked and put down, never got a fair trial.

But who now can count his kin

since he’s been taken from the earth?

34-35 The eunuch said, “Tell me, who is the prophet talking about: himself or some other?” Philip grabbed his chance. Using this passage as his text, he preached Jesus to him. Acts 8:29-35

We can only imagine how the Eunuch, himself a sheep who was slaughtered, with no voice to change his society, mocked by all, his opportunity to make and build a family of his own stolen from him for the sake of squeezing out a few more hours of productivity….related to the story.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? It is the capacity to say, “Me too.” I understand that these are politically charged words today but, regardless of that particular set of conflicts, they are also sacred words because they communicate empathy, a true spiritual virtue. Our particular perspective is always shaped by our own experiences, expectations, and beliefs about the worth of self and others. Our perspective is always richer when we recognize what we hold in common.

Set it all aside and hear this: Jesus cares about the broken-hearted, the disenfranchised, the people that others in society are able to bully. God is the running Father who creates space at the table for all people, without distinctions.

You are on the team and you have a part to play

In this next parable, we read about how an angel of the Lord gives a mere mortal instructions, strange instructions, and Philip, the mortal follows the angel’s lead.

26-28 Later God’s angel spoke to Philip: “At noon today I want you to walk over to that desolate road that goes from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” He got up and went. He met an Ethiopian eunuch coming down the road. The eunuch had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was returning to Ethiopia, where he was minister in charge of all the finances of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He was riding in a chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah. Acts 8:26-28 MSG

Back in the day, men were castrated under the misguided and brutal assumption that they would be more attentive servants. “Candice” was historically the traditional title of the queen mother, responsible for performing the secular duties of the reigning king - who was thought to be too sacred for such activities.

Please reread that last paragraph. Breathe. Think about what was just said there. If you have the stomach to proceed and you have stopped laughing or crying, depending upon your personality, at the utter ridiculousness of those two historical perspectives, I will continue.

My point is this: look at what effort God is making to reach out to the eunuch. A man of shame, a man who literally has had his manhood removed. Imagine all he has lost, and yet he is valued by God. Notice also that the angel goes to Philip and asks him to participate as an emissary in the “running of the father” toward the eunuch.

Many times we expect to receive a strange call like this from God via angels or texts, burning bushes or according to a new tv show - by God friending us on facebook. We fret over knowing and doing the will of the Father - as we should. But this kind of movement across the heavens to earth with an incredible specific request needs to be seen for what it is - unusual. Not everyone will be summoned in such a direct manner. Most of us will be expected to make obvious choices that sit right in front of us concerning God’s will. Like be kind to each other; pay our bills on time; try not to gossip; do our best not to judge self or others. Stuff like that which is neither grand nor sexy, but is as important as anything God asked Philip to do.

God has a team. We are part of his team. That’s quite lovely. Are you participating or sitting on the sidelines? Are you willing and able to take small next right steps? As obvious and simple as they may seem, sometimes those are quite difficult to accomplish.