"I ask for the grace to pray and meditate faithfully. I ask for patience, tolerance, empathy, compassion, and gentleness. I ask to abstain from anger, anxiety, arrogance, compulsive behaviour, discouragement, and self-importance. I ask to know and follow Jesus more closely, seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly.
Isaiah 55:6-9
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
1) "..call upon him;" "...return to the Lord;" "...my thoughts are not your thoughts;" "...my ways higher than you ways;"
2) Context and perspective. Whatever I mean by "God" accounts for supper string, dark matter, and uncounted super clusters of galaxies, what is. What Is. What could I possibly understand of that? Isaiah describes "The heavens are higher than the earth," but we know that the heavens aren't just higher, they reach out in every direction, infinitely. God is big. I don't thing we can even refer to what God "does" as "thought" since out notion of "thought" is a relatively small notion bound to this tiny planet and our diminutive context. And yet, my "ways" can be placed in God's ways. I can fight God's ways, or I can seek and receive God's ways. God's ways completely engulf me, I can't find my way out of them. But I can try swimming upstream, or going at cross purposes. It would be easier to go with the flow.
3) What is the invitation in all this? To contemplate the heavens and my small, but significant place in them.
"Holy One, be near."
Breathprayer: "Seek the Lord... he is near."
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