What will it take for you to ask for help? When your friends betray you? When your family is hospitalized? When your only son ceases to breathe? What would it take to seek for help without relenting? Speaking with a friend last week, this confidant remarked to me, “You have had a hell of a year”.
This is a beautiful reflection, but I can't help but feel there's a subtle paradox hidden in here.
We must "let go" of considerations of the future.
Yet, we must also "trouble the teacher".
I'm in a season of life where I am *extremely* worried about the future, and I have been trying to let go of whatever it is I want and open my hands to receive whatever God is trying to give me. I'm also very unsure what to pray for, because "troubling the teacher" doesn't feel like "letting go".
How do you distinguish those two things? Why did Jairus not say "God's Will be done"? Would he have been wrong to?
I'm almost definitely over-thinking and over-litigating the love of a Father, but I'm at a loss in my own life for how to navigate it. Your article is well timed. Thank you for this reflection. Sending up prayers for you, your family, and your mother 🙏
Scoot it is always good to see your name on one of these notes. For me, asking “God’s will be done” isn’t letting go, for if I am petitioning His kingdom to come then as a resident, solider, and citizen of heaven, I must be willing to hold on to the mission of my king. I’d take up colors and arms without ever a thought of letting go.
Two weeks ago when I wrote On Confessions & Creeds, that ending line about believing “I want you to be raised with me”, is the will of the father. Our Lord desires disciples in the garden who will stand guard, not slumber. He wants us to be holding things. He desires us to hand them to him, not to be discarded, but transformed. If Jairus knew the will of the Lord, he would be unceasing in his petition despite his daughter’s death. It is his will to raise the dead!
Perhaps the greater paradox is that Heaven is already here (See Matthew 12:28). I would go so far as to say, at least to myself, that all my worries are facades of a future where heaven hasn’t already invaded the present. For me, my greatest comfort is in the reality that Heaven is already here.
"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief". If I had to grasp at a synthesis, it's that we don't "surrender" our human concerns by dropping them and hoping God will catch them; we surrender them by taking them to God and hoping He will transform them. Jairus was asking Christ to transform death into life, not to descend from Heaven with the divine Eraser to fix a mistake of providence. So to apply this to my own life, it's not about dropping my concerns about the future, but asking Christ to transform it. Not to fix a mistake, but to glorify and resurrect something which feels dead to me.
Hard to see the mountain from the valley but I am working on believing without seeing. Thank you for your reply. You've given me some good fruit to meditate on.
Hope your mother is recovering well <3
Beautiful writing Steven. Sending prayers to you and your family ♥️
This is a beautiful reflection, but I can't help but feel there's a subtle paradox hidden in here.
We must "let go" of considerations of the future.
Yet, we must also "trouble the teacher".
I'm in a season of life where I am *extremely* worried about the future, and I have been trying to let go of whatever it is I want and open my hands to receive whatever God is trying to give me. I'm also very unsure what to pray for, because "troubling the teacher" doesn't feel like "letting go".
How do you distinguish those two things? Why did Jairus not say "God's Will be done"? Would he have been wrong to?
I'm almost definitely over-thinking and over-litigating the love of a Father, but I'm at a loss in my own life for how to navigate it. Your article is well timed. Thank you for this reflection. Sending up prayers for you, your family, and your mother 🙏
Scoot it is always good to see your name on one of these notes. For me, asking “God’s will be done” isn’t letting go, for if I am petitioning His kingdom to come then as a resident, solider, and citizen of heaven, I must be willing to hold on to the mission of my king. I’d take up colors and arms without ever a thought of letting go.
Two weeks ago when I wrote On Confessions & Creeds, that ending line about believing “I want you to be raised with me”, is the will of the father. Our Lord desires disciples in the garden who will stand guard, not slumber. He wants us to be holding things. He desires us to hand them to him, not to be discarded, but transformed. If Jairus knew the will of the Lord, he would be unceasing in his petition despite his daughter’s death. It is his will to raise the dead!
Perhaps the greater paradox is that Heaven is already here (See Matthew 12:28). I would go so far as to say, at least to myself, that all my worries are facades of a future where heaven hasn’t already invaded the present. For me, my greatest comfort is in the reality that Heaven is already here.
"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief". If I had to grasp at a synthesis, it's that we don't "surrender" our human concerns by dropping them and hoping God will catch them; we surrender them by taking them to God and hoping He will transform them. Jairus was asking Christ to transform death into life, not to descend from Heaven with the divine Eraser to fix a mistake of providence. So to apply this to my own life, it's not about dropping my concerns about the future, but asking Christ to transform it. Not to fix a mistake, but to glorify and resurrect something which feels dead to me.
Hard to see the mountain from the valley but I am working on believing without seeing. Thank you for your reply. You've given me some good fruit to meditate on.