Get Ready

By Thomas Hoffman on 12-27-2012

Recently I discovered a website called Inward/Outward.  It shares a thought or poem from a Christian writer each day of the week.  (There is a link to this site in the “Connections” section of this our website) I usually check the site in the morning, and there are days in which the themes have lived with me all day.  This one came a few days ago, and it’s questions are still ringing in my heart: what will God become in me, is there room for God’s seed to take root anew and grow something unexpected or beautiful in me this year ahead?  How will I become the Light entrusted to me by God’s coming in flesh?

I will probably just let the questions fade into the background as I get on with the regularity of daily life.  But my experience tells me that letting the questions settle deep down into yourself has a way of letting them grow.  It’s like that story that Jesus tells in Mark’s Gospel, in which the seed which the farmer plants grows up on it’s own to become the full grain in the ear.   You’re never sure what makes that miracle work, even when you know the science of it.  So the questions of what? and how? and will I? themselves become the seed for God to grow wonders in our lives and in the connections we have with other lives.  It’s usually long after something lovely happens that you realize that it was the answer to a prayer that you barely even dared to speak aloud.  It’s one of the mysteries of the life of faith – how God can take the wisp of a dream that has been planted in your soul and grow it into a blessing for you and for others, ready for you to behold when you open your eyes to it.