I have never worn a watch

Sitting around a table with people who are happier sitting on the floor to eat always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.  I am aware they are in a world foreign to them and part of me wishes I didn’t have – that they would know I would be happy to eat with them on the floor too, and that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable – just awkwardly unknown like they feel now. 

They are late for lunch.  We have already started.  Who knows when they might arrive, and we have other things to do.  Must keep things moving.

He looks strangely nervous in our house.  We have met a dozen times on his earth, and I remember his confidence at killing the chicken and his laughing at my innocence and squeamishness. 

Now he is here at my table eating lasagna and wearing checkered shirt over checkered shirt to keep away the damp Lima weather.

- I have never seen you wear so many clothes! My husband realizes why he looks different. He laughs shyly.  - It has been many years since I was in Lima.  Over 5 years. 

In his eyes I glimpse sight of his son we know well, and I see the joyful playful innocence there too and I guess he was not unlike his son twenty years ago – impulsive, daring and determined, jumping head first into murky piranha waters to cool off, or pushing out the dug out canoe to catch fish. 

- We are late for lunch.  

It is a statement of fact, not regret. 

- We have never worn watches.

Sometimes I regret that we are so time focused.   That our schedules are so inflexible that we cannot allow time to delay lunch until the special guests have arrived. 

- I guess the Shipibo’s tell the time by the sun? I ask trying to sound like I understand, when really, how can I?

- No.  We tell the time by the birds. 

I listen, fascinated. He likes to tell stories. 

- But it is not always accurate.  Two ladies in my village agreed they would meet in the field before sunrise, at the first cry of the rooster, about 4am. They both went to bed early and arose at the first cry, hurrying in the cool to the field before the sun rose.  Together they waited and waited and the sun never rose.  Finally, they decided to return to the village, where talking to others they realized it was still the middle of the night.  The rooster had been confused by the full moon and had crowed at 11pm!

He laughs and I feel the freedom in the fact that it doesn’t matter that they were wrong.  It doesn’t matter if the rooster cries too early or too late – no one is going to get annoyed or frustrated at being a moment or hour late or early – even if they realize! Estimation is good enough.  It leaves time for life. And the variety just makes for a funny story!

Having spent time in his land, I realize that God designed rhythm, he designed order, but it was never meant to be something that controlled us – it was something that was meant to guide us. 

And it makes me wonder, what things are there around me that God designed that I miss? How much do I listen to the world around me? Where have I made my life too structured or too routine that I miss out on God trying to tell me something? It was the priest and the Levite, the ‘holy helpers’ who passed the needy by, hurrying to their task.  

Because the thing about the clock is that it always tick-tocks the same.  The bird’s call and the Lord’s call is specific to the day.  And I don’t want my watch to dictate what I do – I want my actions to flow out of my relationship with my Heavenly Father.

…the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…

– John 10:3 

Tempted to give up

Sometimes I look at a bad situation and I start praying.  

And that is the right response.  

A broken bank balance, a defiant child, a crying heart once again failing to change herself.  Prayer is always the right response. 

But what sort of prayer?

A deep desperate helpless cry,

or

a submitted, authoritative, listening prayer?

What if I also allowed the situation to show me a larger perspective.  What if God had already responded and set His will forward and the opposite I see is just a temporary spiritual kick back? What if the intensity is a sign that breakthrough, not devastation is near?

All I know is that before we receive a financial gift that is going to change our hopeless bank balance, we regularly have a financial attack.  A broken water tank meaning jug showers out of pots and pans has become this week’s norm – too normal that we complain not, struggling forward not to cope with another thing wrong, but to carry a pan full without overflowing the brim. 

All I know is that before my child steps forward in leaps and bounds in character, I often spend days wondering if he will ever listen to me, if it is too late, if I had only stepped down harder, if he will forever write on the walls, already condemning him in my mind to be a graffiti artist, and he has not yet reached 6?

All I know is my own struggle with sin – this week striving to respect my husband in all I say, and realizing instead all the complaints that flow far too quickly off my tongue – do I have faith that the Holy Spirit will empower my words and I too will change?

And then I remember that the struggle points to heaven’s momentum to bring change – it is precisely because I am about to be empowered to speak and encourage my husband that I am struggling now to do so – if I am just willing to submit to God and accept my powerlessness to change me. 

And it is precisely because my prayer for depth of character and sincerity has been answered that my child is still sticking in his heels, until we sit, heads bowed on his bed, him asking the Holy Spirit to change him and give him self-control, and all of a sudden his impulse to label everything directly turns into everything being labeled by post-it notes instead.

And it is precisely because we know there is an enabling gift flying through the imaginary bank transfer lines from their bank to ours that I just smile and tell Satan to get behind me when the water tank fails – does he think a few financial attacks are going to stop us trusting that God will send enough to cover it and to pay for the things he has destined the money for?   

You see, I am reminded, that it is all about perspective.

And perspective shifts the way we pray.

Thank you for your provision for us daily, thank you for hot water, and stoves for heating water and for jugs, and thank you for the gifts you are sending to provide for all our needs.

Thank you for my child and his heart, already won by you, and that you are showing him how to humbly come to you for help.  Help him always to know he can’t but you can.  Help him to hear your voice louder than the devil’s temptations.

Thank you for your transforming enabling Spirit on my words.  Thank you that I am going to be known as an encourager and defender of my husband, not a loose tongued wife.  Thank you that you want to use me to show others how you enable us to be more like you in our marriage – oh that I would never think it was in my own strength, but recognize it is only through you that I am sanctified and enabled.

It is all about heaven’s perspective.  Where do you need to know it? You know He is waiting to tell you, don’t you? Just draw close and listen to that whisper. 

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

 – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18