A Franciscan Benediction
As you go through this weekend think on this….it has been messing with me for the last 3 days.
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with an anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
I think God blessed you,for the rest of your life, with more than enough Foolishness on April 5, 2008! Im glad i can help you make a difference in the world! BTW, you are doing things already that peaople said couldnt be done!
I love this. I’m one who finds that Christianity too often distracts itself with hot button social issues. What is being asked/challenged above is much more difficult, yet IMHO much closer to the heart of Jesus’ message.
“May God bless you with an anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.”
Has the USA locked up and abused possibly innocent people, without being charged or given a trial? Has God “blessed you with anger” about this (not the personal “you” but a broader “you)? If not, why? I don’t mean to drag this off into a political discussion, but when you get right down to it, it’s not political. It’s a question of morality.
/soapbox
I think it’s awesome. Messes with me too though – kinda of like being a “prisoner of Christ” messes with me (Ephesians 3:1 and 4:1. I much prefer the freedom statements. I will have to think on it – as you suggest – roll it around in my mind for a while
Though Ive never actually prayed this prayer as forally as it is here I often times ask God for these precise things. Though recently, Ive had to ask God to stop breaking my heart for the broken people of this world–or atleast until I can sort a few of my own scattered pieces.
Fresh perspective. I find that I am deeply moved by the words in this prayer this morning, as a challenge to live as close to my own heart as is possible. That my own heart, molded by the holy spirit through Christ, may recieve some inkling of the ability to FEEl deeply, so that I may be blessed to live a life full of the things that matter. In small group this week, we started out worshipping to a song which repeated the “potter and clay” metaphor. God showed me that the softer that I am, the more pliable, and the more easy I am to mold to be what he wants me to be. Being “soft” would mean to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable, would mean to feel everything on the inside of my heart as fully. When the holy spirit is present in my heart, the feeling things becomes a blessing, and again, represent what are most important for HIM – which extends beyond myself to the exact people and circumstances mentioned in the fransiscan benediction.
This came to life to me in a real way this weekend. I had not been to downtown Birmingham in a while and my husband and i went to Al’s downtown (the locals know what that is) and saw poverty, injustice and hurt.
It broke my heart. it stoked a fire in me.
What can we do? What are you fired up to do?
I have gotten myself into SO much trouble in the past when I decided to act on my own without being led by the Holy Spirit. I have, in the past, taken it upon myself to fix things that I saw as broken – and managed to REALLY screw it up good. SO – I have no other choice now, than to pray about the things that break my heart, and wait for God to direct me. When I get fired up – I pray, I ask, and I wait.
Right On!
You remind me of the verse about the Word becoming flesh in us and how even when we mentally ascend to a truth or reality of God and scripture/ a reality of ourselves and our lives, we must allow the Lord to actually work it in our hearts and in us so that His Word (He) becomes flesh in us… from the inside out…
I often don’t feel very comfortable talking about something that I only mentally ascend to because it lacks the power that a truth that the Lord has revealed to me has when it has first become a truth alive in my heart.
I hope everything that He is doing in you will be made more and more clear as the days go on…
I always find it good to ask “Lord where are you in this situation?” He will work things for good… but life is hard.
XOXO!
Peace to your heart.
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