Foggy

7:15 a.m. Sun rising unseen somewhere behind the fog. Fog is appealing, makes me want to go walk in it. Feel the close wetness on my face as I wander down to the coffeeshop. But not this morning. This morning I’m prepping to go to a rehearsal, terribly distracted, caught–as it were–in a fog.

The honesty of the heart is a strange thing. I know what a corrupt heart feels like–from the inside–the sort of chaos that happens when we try to justify our various strangenesses. And perhaps in my own life it is most strange–welcome strange–to feel the clean simplicity of knowing what I’m doing and why, and who I’m trusting to lead. I feel some anxiety about the coming weeks and months, but it is an appropriate anxiety that speaks more to the weight of the task I’ve been called to than any impending worry about success or failure. I am not in control of my life or the results of my work, and I have never been clearer about that than this moment. It also struck me this morning, as I was praying, that I am no longer the man of James 1, the man who asks for wisdom but who doubts while he’s asking, therefore somehow demotivating God from giving him any.

These days I am assuming that God is orchestrating just as He sees fit, and that He has–for inexplicable reasons–asked me to do a few particular things. Most of all, He is asking me to speak into broken lives with all the kindness and love and strength that I can muster or discern. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the wisdom to deliver, but I am trusting that He’s going to give me the words, the wisdom, the Spirit, and the courage to do exactly what He’s entrusting me with. To think anything else on this day would be absurd.

If all this seems a bit enigmatic, well, it’s supposed to be. All will be made clear soon enough. Perhaps faith is best used in fog. What we need is clarity, we think. But maybe not. Maybe (I got this from Mother Theresa), what we need to give up is our need and desire for clarity, and seek to trust instead.

Praying for power and life to come spilling into the lives of the people…