February 24, 2007

Lent Reading Day 4

The Call of Abram: Genesis 12:1-9

What does it mean to be called out from your people, tribe, nation, and culture to go to a new place, to make a new home, that God will show you? I find it hard to imagine. How would I respond it such a circumstance? How would you? And yet - is it really so unlike what we all live?; what we all are invited to? I was watching Grey's Anatomy tonight whch begin with the statement that Doctors believe in Science, not things such as miracles. The next philisophical musing was a post-modern response saying that science is wrong, that miracles do happen. The miracle in the Abraham and Sarah story isn't so much that they were old, worn, and baren and yet birthed a nation, but rather that they said, "yes" to God's invitation to relationship - one that led to new discoveries, unexpected journeys, and out-of-the-box ways of knowing and being known. The truest miracle of the journey of Abraham and Sarah is that they lived their life of blessing being a blessing to others... Blessed doesn't mean happy-go-lucky, or that everything is easy or turning-up-roses, but that life is full, whole, and meaning-full. I'm much quicker to want to take the blessings that come my way, than to pay them forward, to be a blessing to others. What does it mean to bless others in our actions, words, relationship, presence, and prayers? Maybe - just maybe - when we're so quick to want God to do miracles for us - to make life easier, to grant our wishes, to wipe away our challenges, we're overlooking the mystery that maybe God is inviting us to be miracle-doers - blessing others when both we're happy and healthy, and when we're broken and lost.