To delay is not to deny.
Perhaps you've never considered the immeasurable grace that silence alone affords.
That we do not recognize the reply may speak once more to our ignorance of a God that affords us that which we require over that which we request.
Oh, ironic email typo, how I love you. How could I be expected to resist your temptations, when you make me laugh so?
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Dave, I need the rigors of Central Christian Church Monday morning starting at 8 a.m. .
(Client), I will reserve the inquiry of why for fear of the answer, however your request is out of my hands. Consider contacting the church in the morning. I'm sure they can assist you.
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Over the course of my life the wisdom of age has started to replace the knowledge of youth. Discovery and experience has slowly overtaken the type of certainty that only inexperience could have afforded me.
I came to realize that certainty, the kind that many of those over me had shown as theirs, was something they would cling to in order to convince me of the black and white of so many subjects, that it was a luxury reserved for the blissfully ignorant. As distance from the back and white (for anyone who was actually looking) revealed itself as so much grey that I was not longer certain that many things could be broadly generalized in order to be compartmentalized into one of two boxes. I could no longer believe that life could or should be lived as such.
This was the start of the breakdown, when a stone became broken to expose a flesh heart.
The world goes on as it will, and so do we then, and the once seemingly endless resources of time and energy began to reveal themselves as very finite indeed.
Over the course of a few ocassions I was, as all people are, forced to come to grips with my mortality, realizing as the end of the endless seemed to be closing in, so did the vision of my own end as well.
But there is a greater comfort and freedom in that realization if you can approach it fearlessly, and I came to conclude that resistance to certain things is an exercise in futility. Especially as I dared to delve into a deeper and more honest introspection.
As I do still, I did then, I lack a perception and understanding of most people, what they do and why they do it and of the world as a whole. So, this sort self examination was forced upon me from a very early age as a survival mechanism of sorts and in my hope of fixing whatever it was that seemed to be very, very broken inside of me. Because most people, even those closest to me didn't (and still don't often times) understand those things in me.
As I grew, I began to realize that the whole world was as much, and even more so than I, a very broken thing and that was the issue at the crux of the problem.
As this became ever clearer, I found, many if my insecurities evolving into self confidence and that the courage to fight relentlessly was renewed, as those thinhs which should be fought for and against became exposed as something much larger and very different than I thought they were in youth.
Those weaknesses and insecurities instilled in me from the very earliest parts of my life that I saw as making me weak and vulnerable I spared no effort to keep hidden, and protected, because I saw them only as weapons that might be used against me.
Weapons are weapons... the intent of their master dictates their aim and the level of marksmanship, how likely it finds it.
All of this mortality, experience, observation and introspection was oddly enough the very means by which I finally began the process of learning to master them, so that they are becoming the greatest weapons in my arsenal... I could not ever have guessed this would be the case, but it is.
I once had a guy tell me to take a snap shot of time and remember it, so that when I became thirty I could look back and see how every black and white certainty I had then had become more like varying shades of grey.
He was right.
Now, if you had told me all of this 20 years ago, I suppose I would have smiled and nodded. I would have politely taken it all in and if you asked, tell you that I understood, truly believing that I did.
In looking back now however, there's no way that I could, at least not like this.
Some answers can be given and will suffice, but the most important of life's answers should be discovered if they are to be understood, appreciated, and applied.
In short, I would sum it all up like this...
Knowledge may give us all the right answers, but wisdom will give us all the right questions.
d(-_-)b
Solo Cristo Salva
God always answers prayer.
Sometimes it's exactly what we hoped, but rarely is that the case.
Often the answer comes through people amd circumstances we wouldn't have ever imagined, so we fail to recognize the answer as such.
However, we should never fail to consider that silence too is an answer, and the best of all possible answers. Silence can be convicting and yet affords us the incomprehensible depth of grace we require.
That God doesn't indulge what we request but affords us what we require.
There are events in our own lives and those of others, that we may feel are certain defeats, people we may see as irreconcilable failures, and so many obstacles insurmoumtable.
I think there is hope however and we would be wise to remember that our assessment of anything is ours alone.
It is that of a finite limited perspective from we who may never live long enough to see the fruition of any one thing in its entirety as potentially being quite the contrary as seen in the unlimited perspective of the infinite.
We must learn that the ultimate outcome and impact of all things, extends far beyond our vision, our lifespan, and our world. That our definition of success or failure is in a all likely hood, a far cry from the eternal definition of the same.
For me?
I say, assume nothing, prepare for anything, and pray for God's will in all things.
Strive to see each thing simply as it is, no more, no less and no judgement (for that is not our place).
Move on and allow others to do the same.
We cannot say with any certainty that any part is more or less valuable in the grand scheme, or what part it may ultimately play.
If we believe in design over default, then we should consciously acknowledge that somehow each indiviudual thing is inseparable from each other, as a part of the mysterious collective whole to manifest the design of the Creator.
Solo Cristo Salva
db
