Give your servant success today, and have compassion on him in the presence of this man.

Nehemiah 1:11

Eleven verses  into the prayer.  Three rather magnified pages on my reader.  The very last line of a lengthy petition, before Nehemiah gets to what we would consider the point;  an impassioned cry for personal help.

He opens with worship, with a recitation of the glory of God, of the promises of the covenant with his people.  He acknowledges the sin of himself and his people and the fairness of their exile in exchange.  He reminds himself, he reminds his God of the promise to restore them if they just turn back to his way.  He glories in the power and strength of God, in his faith in his goodness to act. 

When he finally reaches his petition, he's so full of the glory of God, that the King of Persia becomes almost an afterthought, "this man" just a man, though he holds Nehemiah's life in his hands.

I love spring. 

I love clearing out of school right behind the kids and pumping up my tires. 

I love watching my bike sway gently over bumps secure in it's rack 

I love blue skies, bright sun and a breeze across the lake. 

 I love windsurfers on the water, babies on the trail, and a dog tugging joyfully at his leash. 

 I love the promise of renewal, the kiss of warmth, the taste of new life to come.  

A touch of joy, 

a hope for the future,

a nugget of bonus blessings

 on January the 30th.

John wore a camel hair garmet with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey  Matthew 1:6

Wow, why such a vivid discription?  I see so much more than even is stated.  I see a wild man with long tangled hair and a dusty cloak blowing in the wind at the shore of the river.  A man tantalizing and terrifying all at the same time.  Who wouldn't be fascinated by his rugged independence, yet wonder what a man who asks so much of himself might possibly ask of me.   

I wonder what they thought, those people who flocked out to see him.  They left the city, their homes, modern civilization as they knew it, to hearken back to the days of the prophets.  It's easy to think of them as so long ago to us that we lump them together with all Old Testament stories as if they all happened at once.  But it had been four hundred since the prophets last spoke.  A history of twice the span of a our own country, time as far removed from them as the 1600s are from us. 

Did this sense of an ancient throwback shock the author into such a detailed memory of the man?  Did it capture the imagination of a people beaten down by oppression and craving the words of God? For all his fire, for all his drama, what was it he really asked? 

Repent,

prepare,

listen;

for God is coming. 

After the voice had spoken, only Jesus was found.  They kept silent, and in those days told no one what they had seen.
Luke 9:36

"...kept silent..."  I wonder if those words were ever before or since spoken about Peter?  He was always the first to speak up with glorious affirmations of Jesus; and always the first to stick his foot in his mouth up to the knee. 

What would it take to shock him into silence?  Not the appearance of Moses and Elijah, he was still talking then.  The overshadowing cloud seemed to end that thought.  I wonder what they saw in that cloud.  Was it the same cloud that lead the Israelites through the desert,  the one Moses disappeared in to receive the commandments? 

They were fisherman, accustomed to fog, it couldn't be any ordinary cloud to bring such fear.  But then, they heard the voice of God; the voice that called Abraham to leave his home for a new land, Paul to leave his heritage to bring Jesus to the world.  The voice of God, sometimes a call to action, sometimes a call to speak, but sometimes a call to trembling silence. 

One day He and His disciples got into a boat and He told them, "Lets cross over to the other side of the lake.  So they set out, and as they were sailing He fell asleep. 
Luke 8: 22-23a

I love this picture.  I see a gorgeous, sunny, spring day.  The boat slowly rocks in the breeze and the oars splash softly in the water.  Jesus is exhausted from traveling and teaching, from the press of the crowds, from the noise of their endless questions and demands.  
Did he lie back on a pile of unused fishing nets or roll his robe into a pillow?  Did he sigh with relief as the tension floated away on the gentle waves?  Did he glory in the beauty of his father's creation as he drifted off to a well-earned nap?
He slept so soundly and so well that the sudden storm didn't even disturb him.  The howling winds, the violent waves, the shuddering, nearly capsizing boat; none were enough to rouse him.   It was only the terrified voices of the ones he loved that got his attention. 
He calmed the storm with only his voice, then turned to to them with the simple question, "Where is your faith?"
The picture of faith; the trust to close my eyes and rest in the midst of the storm.

"...Therefore take care how you listen.  For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him"
Luke 8:18

"Stay with me.  Hang in there.  It's going to make sense in a few more minutes." 
It's the endless teacher's refrain, looking out on frustrated faces and books slammed shut.  In the middle of a half page math problem, some of them just give up.  Others insist they already know it; they have no need of my help.  But some, just keep struggling.   They write and erase, they question and correct, in short, they listen; until they suddenly, explosively get it.  

I remember that feeling to this day, from a high school physics class, when all the straggling threads suddenly came together in a whole I couldn't even explain how I knew.  It's the greatest joy of teaching to see my students experience that.  But I can't take them there.  I can present my lessons, I can guide and prompt, but only they can decide to try.  Only they can decide to listen.

In trials and in blessings, what will I decide?

But the seed in the good ground -- these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it and by enduring bear fruit.
Luke 8:15

I always thought of fruit as something to work for.  I'm not sure why, a tree certainly doesn't work to bear its fruit.  It just does what its made to do.  In the right soil, with the right moisture and moderate temperatures, it explodes with juicy luscious fruit right on schedule.  But it can't do anything about any of those factors.  It just holds on, it just endures and responds to whatever comes its way. 

So instead of analyzing my life against a list of spirit fruit, instead of wondering where I should work harder and how I can improve a weak area, my job is just to hold on.  To hear the word with an honest heart, to cling to it against all storms, to endure; and wait for God to produce the fruit.