At It Again, God!

Getting into work this morning late and consumed with frustration after keeping an onerous personal appointment I muttered: “Why should I have to do this, take time off from work, be late and fall behind in my schedule? Nothing’s gained it!” Then, without warning, God, You answered my prayer.

I had prayed repeatedly that You would help make me available as Your listener to staff at work taking the opportunity to drop in to my office and “socialize” for a few minutes between seeing clients. However, nothing changed. “Never” continued the right time to drop in on me.

For instance, one therapist, Andrea, customarily appears without warning, waits until I look up, locks eyes and asks, “So what do you know?” I find it aggravating never knowing what to respond. No matter what I say, Andrea twists it to an instance of You acting beneficently.

Monday, when she dropped in I looked up slowly, locked eyes, leaned back and rolled my eyes at her. Andrea responded immediately by relating a self deprecating story. Years ago two teenaged neighbor boys demonstrated their irritation with her for greeting them every day, by asking “How much you have grown?” They rolled their eyes at her.

Even after praying I treated more than Andrea badly. Today, running late who else would I meet? Of course, Andrea! But, today, Your imparted grace deflated my impatience. I turned to her giving every indication that I was interested to hear what she would say, and asked her how she was doing.

She mentioned her last treatment session, a difficult one. But Andrea shared her reaction to it from the perspective of a prayer partner’s response to the financial destitution and physical immobility the prayer partner suffers because of her Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Andrea noted that in our material economy, the prayer partner is a “loser.” In Your economy, she told me her prayer partner performs an essential service: intercessory prayer. Andrea illustrated the importance of this to me by commenting that Mother Theresa once confided she had an intercessor whose prayers supported all her service.

The prayer partner appeared to possess no gift for intercessory prayer prior to her illness. Yet, Andrea related, how in the course of her prayer partner’s illness, repeatedly her prayer partner found herself surrendering the hopes which had formed the expectations that had guided how she lived her life until only You remained as her sole hope. She had come to expect a profound joy in accepting where You placed her, doing what You made specially for her to do there.

You answered my prayer surpassingly. This morning You allowed me to serve as Your ears. The voice I heard –whatever benefit its speaker took from my listening – You used it to invite me to redeem the hopes that form my expectations for the hope of You alone.