One of my favorite stories in the Hebrew Scriptures is found in 2 Kings 6. The Aramean king has had it with Elisha giving away his military secrets to the king of Israel. He decides to do away with this troublesome prophet. He finds out where Elisha lives and sends his army to capture him. The next morning Elisha’s young servant walks outside and sees the army ready to descend upon them.
He freaks out. He rushes to Elisha gasping out what he has seen. Elisha calmly walks outside with the boy, peruses the scene before him and prays, “Open his eyes, Lord, so he may see.” And the boy’s eyes are opened, expanding to behold the army of the Lord, replete with fiery horses and chariots vastly outnumbering the Arameans.
For a number of years now this story has lodged itself into my mind and my prayer. “Open my eyes, Lord.” I am so often blind to what God is doing in and around me, blinded by my own desires and fears. I often forget to ask the Lord to help me see what he wants me to see.
So Much Faith
In Matthew 3, we are introduced to John the Baptist, herald of the Messiah, stepping into the role spoken of centuries before by the prophet Isaiah – “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord.’”
I imagine him shouting his proclamation, intensity in his eyes, muscles tense with each new breath as he rears back and shouts again, his eyes darting here and there, wondering if anyone is paying attention. Some might have seen him as a madman, he sure looked the part, but many heard and responded to his call for repentance, feeling its weight, and followed him to the river. John knew that Jesus was the long hoped for Messiah. He was sure of it. He was readying people, baptizing them in preparation to meet their king.
But Then. . .
But then, some time later, in Matthew 11, we see John again, this time in prison, wondering if he has made a terrible mistake. He sends some friends to ask Jesus. “Are you really the one? Or should we expect someone else?” It is a devastating question, evoking John’s near despair. He languishes in prison, waiting, thinking that Jesus should have inaugurated his Great Plan by now. He had given his life for this. The whole thing had epic proportions in his mind. The prophets had foretold it and now Jesus was here to bring it into being.
But . . . nothing was happening. The Kingdom was not coming. Had he missed it? Was he mistaken about Jesus? His friends make their way to Jesus and ask John’s question.
Jesus responds,
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt 11:4-5).
This news is amazing! Jesus is doing a lot. Surely this will satisfy John’s question. But then Jesus says this: “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” Why would someone “fall away” with news like this? Perhaps because it was not the answer John was looking for. Perhaps because John was hoping and watching for a particular course of action from Jesus that was not happening.
Should we expect someone else? Do I ask this question in the recesses of my heart when it seems like Jesus is not doing anything? I pray and pray and ask and ask and nothing seems to be happening. Should I look somewhere else? Should I take matters into my own hands?
What Is Happening, Not What Isn't
I have discovered one of the key obstacles to prayer is my inability to see. I am looking in the direction of my desire, when Jesus is responding in my peripheral vision. When we cry out to God for what we need, it can be difficult to see what God is doing when all our attention is swept up into what God is not doing. What God is doing may not be at all what we expect.
This is a situation that will likely happen many times in our lives with Jesus. In the gospels, the disciples are often confused about what Jesus is doing, and not doing. He leaves town just when he is getting popular. He performs amazing miracles, and then tells people not to say anything. He tells confusing parables, and then simply walks away. He speaks strange words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He seems to go out of his way to heal people on the Sabbath. In some ways, I imagine the disciples were glad that Jesus asked them to follow him – since they had no idea where they were going or what was happening. Their expectations, like John the Baptists’, did not correspond to what Jesus was doing.
Of course, the pinnacle of Jesus' strange and confusing way of living was his willingness to go to the cross. This was not in anybody’s playbook. No one was looking for this. And yet, this work of Jesus was exactly what we all needed.
All of this to encourage you to allow some room in your prayers to attend to what is happening in your life, all the seemingly small and ordinary things that occur, the emotions you feel, the things that catch your attention, that conversation that seems to linger in your mind - especially when it seems that you have stalled and God is not doing anything. Ask God to open your eyes so that you might see. You might just be surprised!
Paula D’Arcy once wrote “God comes to us disguised as our life.” Grow us, Father, in our ability to see you.
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With the mention of God coming to us, and our desire to see afresh, may I invite you to join me as we enter the season of Advent here at Thursday Thoughts, in preparation for Christmas.
My plans are to take the next few weeks to offer some reflections on Advent, including some new imaginative prayers, as an invitation to ponder these days of anticipation and celebration for the coming of Jesus.
Thanks for reading. Until next Thursday.
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