I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
The Best Ever
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Dear Friends, Last month, Shawn and I took the boys to see the ocean for the first time. Actually, it was a first in many ways—first multiple day road trip, first time staying in a hotel on the way. They loved it. Everything was the “best ever”. “This is the best breakfast ever!” They said, over their free continental breakfasts of Lucky Charms and re-hydrated scrambled eggs. We spent day after day at the beach, never tiring of standing in the ocean and getting knocked off our feet by the waves that barreled over us. We would swim out a ways, marveling as we looked out from the calmer waters that go on and on for miles on end. Because of the cloudy silt in the water, you could only see the first inch under the surface. To my boys, this was a feature. Who knows what fish or crab you might rub up against? Adventure! Yes, adventure. And I’m being provoked by their child-like search for it. Many of us wake up, bring our thimble to the waters of God’s word, fill it up for a few minutes, then move on about our ordinary day. But He is not meant to be drawn up in a thimble by us. No. We are meant to be swimming in the waters of Him. What does that look like practically? I believe it starts with conversation. Words. Prayer. To come with curiosity, joy, even our frustrations and fears. No topic off limits. We move past the easily controlled shoreline and abandon that thimble. Let the salty waves of what comes at us usher us into more vulnerable, less predictable waters. We talk to Him. About everything. Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “Prayer is the way we work our way out of the comfortable but cramped world of self into the self-denying but spacious world of God… if we keep at this long enough, prayer by prayer, we find ourselves living in a reality that is far larger, far lovelier, far better. But it takes considerable getting used to. Prayer is the process of getting used to it, going from the small to the large, from control to mystery, from self to soul—to God”. I’m coming at it differently these days. The duty, the measurable, the safe, being swallowed up in the ocean and adventure of Him. Now that is the best ever. –Anna |
Anna Blanc
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
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