by Jim Knight
This morning during my prayer time, I read these words of Henri Nouwen in his book Making All Things New:
“Our first task is to dispel the vague, murky feelings of discontent and to look critically at how we are living our lives. This requires honesty, courage and trust. We must honestly unmask and courageously confront our many self-deceptive games. We must trust that our honesty and courage will lead us not to despair, but to a new heaven and a new earth.”
And I wondered, am I living my life these days with “honesty, courage and trust”? It occurs to me that I am trying to be in touch with an abstraction of God. I am trying to “do it myself” in a new way, one that flies under the radar of previous experience. I have become more practical, more common sense oriented and less able to rest into real faith that is not dependent on my own efforts or imagination.
What a dangerous paradox. As the work of Jubilee Housing has progressed, as we have had some experience of success, I am subtly (and not so subtly) shifting my faith and orientation toward common sense answers. As I write these words, I actually can feel them at some level. I can recognize the absence of deeper faith that has been my comfort and guide for most of the journey.
Lord, I need you now like never before. I need to be transformed yet again toward a more real experience of your grace and will for life. Why is it that some “success,” even the modest amount known to date, has such power to change me? Why is it that I cling to it as validation and at the same time let loose of its source?
Lord, I sit before you this morning in need of forgiveness; in need of transformation. Call me back to myself. Call me to yourself. Make me the person you want me to be. Purge any remnant of ego that clings to self-satisfaction. Help me rest into the newest impossible circumstances as the playground for your grace, not the locus of my own self-proving.
I know it is all because of you. Don’t let my momentary impatience abort your deeper purpose. Give me deep patience. The widow gave Elijah her last portion of flour and oil on the promise that she would not run out. She trusted her Lord to provide. How is it that I cling to my last portion so strongly. Why can’t I trust you to provide?
The context changes–from Phase I construction to Phase II underwriting to staff development and becoming your corporate body. The jar is nearly empty; I feel helpless for life. Can you hold me in the powerlessness? Can you help me rest into the only real power there is, that which comes from you?
It is clearer this morning than it has been in some time. I am impatiently rushing your plans. I am trying again to make it happen as I want it to. I am unable to rest in the discomfort of not yet, even as you have been so gracious in providing. Forgive my unbelief. Fill me with your purpose and grace. Your will be done.
Jim Knight is a member of Bread of Life Church and the executive director of Jubilee Housing, which provides apartments and a community of support for hundreds of people.
