Seeing in the Fog

   As I sit here in the quiet room this morning and think over the things that have run through my mind, even in the short time I have been awake, I have to wonder how it all fits together. God knows how disjointed this all is in my thoughts, but He also knows why I have had the images and ideas run through during this time.

   Take for example the situation outside as I walked and thought. It was a foggy morning, and it was pretty early, and the world outside my condo was not really awake yet. The sounds were muted, and when I would stop to listen hard, the only thing that entered my ears was the soft dripping of water from the leaves of the trees onto the dead leaves on the ground. It was as if God said "Listen". So I did, but not only with my ears, with my mind and heart also. Was there something that He wanted me to hear, not only from the muted silence, but from what I had already read in the Bible this morning? Did He take this very quiet time in nature to get me to reflect on what I had seen with my eyes earlier?

   The first thing that I had seen as I read earlier was these verses from Psalm 41:

    "Blessed is the one who considers the poor!

In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him;
the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness you restore him to full health."

   There is that thing about "the poor" again. My eyes have been drawn to those words over and over again over this past year. Perhaps it is because the phrase is used so many times in the Psalms, the book I have been reading in this calendar time period, but perhaps it is because He wants me to really see and feel what I am reading. Am I still in a fog about this?

   Then I read at the end of Psalm 52, these words:

   "I will wait for your name,"

   I have seen that admonition to wait again and again in Scripture. It is a theme that cannot be ignored, but is there a time to quit using the "waiting" excuse and get on with whatever it is that God says? The answer to that is obvious, but how do I know when I have the answer I seek?

   In the Gospel reading today in Luke 22:

   "And when those who were around him saw what would follow, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, “No more of this!”

   The disciples asked Jesus what to do, and then without waiting for His answer, did what they thought anyway, only to be rebuked for their error. They asked the right question, but then acted out of what they thought was right. Better to have acted out of what His answer was, for sure.

   What would my friends and others think if I take the answers that I receive from God and act on them? Would they think that I was weird and going overboard?

   But are those the right questions to ask? Does Jesus say "No more of this"?

   I see that the fog feels secure and anonymous, but, is it time to come in out of the fog and quit waiting?