Providing vital Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
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Day 2 Rays of Hope Week of Prayer World YMCA/YWCA Prayers for those needing a job or a better job
World YMCA/YWCA Week of Prayer, started Sunday Nov 8, this prayer led by Tim Hallman, Director of Christian Emphasis, YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne, Indiana USA
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DAY 2: SPIRITUAL AND ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT THROUGH CRISES By: Nicole Ashwood, Programme Executive, Just Community of Women and Men World Council of Churches & Nirmala Gurung, Coordinating Asia region for World YWCA’s Initiative on Young Women Changing Narratives on SRHR and Mental Health
BIBLICAL INSPIRATION: Habakkuk 2:1-3 “I will stand at my watch post, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION • In Habakkuk 2: 2-3, God instructs Habakkuk to write his vision clearly. What is your vision for a transformed community in your context? • Are there special gifts or skills needed to bring the vision to life? • How can you partner with pre-existing community organizations to make a difference in the lives of others?”
In seasons of change, worry, or opportunity, there is always a need to seek God’s guidance. But what assurance is there we are discerning rightly? Read on for insights from the writings of Dr. Paul Tournier.
The real obstacles to faith are generally very simple.
They are the spite, fear, covetousness, or pride we are unwilling to confess.
Dr. Paul Tournier, The Person Reborn, “Life Under the Guidance of The Spirit”, p. 169
The main thing for us in this world is not being sure about what God’s will is, but seeking it sincerely and following what we do understand of it.
Tournier, p. 169
Many people would like to be sure of God’s guidance before trusting it. They are unwilling to take the risk of making a mistake.
In my experience they have always waited indefinitely.
p. 169
Monastery at St. Anne’s Church, Jerusalem
But even our mistakes teach us to distinguish the Spirit’s guidance more clearly, when we really want to see it.
Every event takes on a fresh significance, for we are no longer concerned only with whether it is to our advantage or not, but with what God is saying to us through it.
Tournier, p. 170
Nothing is more futile than to argue endlessly about whether, on some occasion in the past, one has made a mistake or not. …the seeking of God’s guidance is, despite all our mistakes, the surest rule of life.
p. 170
Neglected trail, Tiberius
Then my friend exclaimed, “I am like Lot’s wife. My life is petrified because I keep looking back. I turn that problem over and over in my mind, uselessly, without ever discovering whether I did right or not. My life is no longer an adventure, because my faith is shaken and I am not looking for God’s guidance anymore. I want to start going forward again.”
Tournier, p. 170
We all find it difficult to understand God’s guidance, because we lack imagination.
We are prisoners of our prejudices.
We find it hard to understand the detours along which God takes us, and it is only afterward that we see that we had to go that way.
p. 170
Valley of Hinnom, Jerusalem
…in our lives we should doubtlessly never know the joy of a really fruitful inspiration if we were not ready to follow many others which do not bear the fruits we expect of them.
Thus, amid many uncertainties, we learn the patience of faith.
A person’s life is never changed in the way we should have imagined.
Dr. Paul Tournier, The Person Reborn, “Life Under the Guidance of The Spirit”, p. 171
One must be honest and never pretend to have a solution, never fall victim to one’s own powers of suggestion.
“I had realized that I could not do anything by myself, and had clutched at the idea that God would act for me and that all that was left for me to do was to see how he would set about it.”
“The attitude we are able to take to our personal problems is in the end more important than their solution.”
Tournier, p. 171
God grants what he commands.
His intervention is also seen in those sudden, unexpected experiences, at times of utter despair, when all at once the mind is filled with the absolute certainty of God’s love, even though there has been no recent mention made of it.
It is like an unexpected signpost upon an uncertain road.
Dr. Paul Tournier, The Person Reborn, “Life Under the Guidance of The Spirit”, p. 172
The striving of a Christian to live fully in reality, to be true and full of love amidst all the darkness, lies, and pride – how can it be done each day? I was struck by the following paragraph, a reflection on the “yes” of Mary, mother of our Lord, who is a perpetual example to us of grace and trust while immersed in sorrow and injustice. If she can say yes each day, by the grace of our Lord, we too can say yes.
“To join in Mary’s Yes at the foot of the cross is to declare oneself ready to undergo the Cross of Christ in whatever form one’s faith and circumstance might require.
To say Yes to that daunting possibility is not to know for certain that one possesses the capacity to carry through with that pledge. For the capacity to do so requires grace over which we have no control.
What we do have is the assurance that where sin – or evil or hardship or persecution – abound, grace superabounds.
That is all we need to know in order to commit with our feeble will to endure the Cross of Christ in whatever form it might take in our own lives and the premier place where the decision to do so is made at the Eucharist table of the Lord.”
The writer goes on to quote Adrienne von Speyer, a woman who had suffered greatly yet trusted Christ deeply:
“We must not fear this and let ourselves take back, in the night of suffering, the joy underlying this being allowed to suffer with Christ.
The joy may have been sent as a deposit; it may have become insensible; it must above all be there, even in the most profound suffering, as grateful joy that we know to be so profoundly anchored in the Lord that it does not disappear even when our whole capacity for feeling is required by the suffering.”
– Gil Bailie, “God’s Gamble: The Gravitational Power of Crucified Love” ‘Abide With Us’, pgs 348-9
