Sometimes Jerry and I walk along railroad tracks and I try
to walk on a rail, but I can’t quite keep my balance. It’s a little beyond me. Then
I reach for Jerry’s hand. If I can even just touch his hand as he walks alongside
me, I walk confidently. Absent his hand, though, I keep falling off. 

Sometimes God asks us to perform right at the edge of our
natural ability. Writing a memoir is like trying to balance on that rail. It’s
one thing to feel the impact of my memories; it is something else entirely to find
the words so that others can feel with me. Like a painter, I can see several
images, in my mind’s eye, with my first boyfriend. But I’m struggling to choose
the right scenes and the right words to convey the color of my increasing
disillusionment with him. I feel like I’m walking a rail by myself. I keep
falling off. It’s time to reach for a hand. 

Time to reach not only for the unseen Hand, but for the hands
of friends who have committed to pray for my writing. Their prayers will give
me eyes to see that unseen Hand extended toward me. Their prayers will give me
power to touch that hand. And by the power of their prayers, I can walk supernaturally,
holding onto Jesus’ hand. 

Are you, too, falling off the rail? Are you losing your
emotional balance? Perhaps you have lost a job. Or you can’t seem to forgive a
neighbor. Is it time to reach for other’s hands? Time to let the prayers of
others give you power to touch the unseen Hand? 

Jesus, you have called us. You will see us through. Steady us
on the rail.   

   

Jacob Needleman, eight years old in 1942, had an Uncle Ben
who gave him a half-dollar coin now and then. In those war years, fifty cents
felt like fifty dollars. Needleman says, in his book, Money and the Meaning of Life, “The experience of this
incomprehensible generosity from my Uncle Ben exerted a constant pressure on my
mental and emotional development, which, as I now realize, helps me eventually
to be convinced that despite all other evidence to the contrary, something like
God might actually exist in the universe.” Pg. 197.

Ben showed his love to his young nephew. He didn’t just tell
him, “I love you. You’re important and special.” He gave him the feeling of it
by coming alongside him, making a transfer of resources. That showing allowed Ben
not only to feel good, but to infer that deeper Good might also exist.

In
Jesus, God has shown the world his love. He has not only said, “I am gentle and
humble in heart,”, but, he also lies, as a baby, amidst the animal’s straw. (Mt.,11:29; Luke 2, NIV) Jesus came not
just to tell, but to show. Showing allows us to feel the feeling of the truth,
not just grasp it with our minds. John says, in 1John 1:1, “That which was from
the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked at and touched.” As that baby grew up, he showed John the love of God. In Jesus, we have been shown the love of
the Father. The boundary-setting commandments etched on Moses’ tablets told of
God’s love. The touch of Messiah’s hand, the look in his eyes, the tone of his
voice—these give us the feeling of God’s love.

Holy Spirit, come. Show us, in the scriptural record, Jesus. And help us to infer, from Jesus, the deep goodness of Father, at the
center of the universe.

“A virgin shall conceive.” Isaiah told God’s promise hundreds
of years before the baby arrived. To a people living in darkness, Isaiah
prophesied a great light. Hope was kept alive through the years by other
prophets but many everyday Israelites must have doubted on their deathbeds that
Messiah would ever come. And yet, as a culture, they waited. And waited. And waited.
And waited. They waited for God to do what he said he would do.

And one raucous, holy night when Bethlehem
was so full of visitors the innkeepers were renting the animal’s quarters, hope
was vindicated. The virgin bore the promise. The bloody, pink body burst forth
from Mary’s body, adding the smells of childbirth to the smells of the cattle. Hope
made flesh.

I’m waiting, too, aren’t’ you? Waiting not just for that
grown-up baby’s return, but also for God to make good on the smaller promises. Some
of us are waiting for a healing. Others wait for a job. Many wait for redemption
of old pain.

In our waiting, let’s take hope from Israel’s waiting.
The second coming is as sure as the first. The smaller promises will
also be delivered unto us—healing, provision, redemption. With hope, let us
wait.

Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.