You,
“All
in, let us pray for each other.”
It is vital that we pray for
each other. This has not always been the way I saw it. And I did not always
include everyone in it. I prayed for my friends, for my country, for the people
of a similar faith and for tragedy to befall the contrary other. If you had
asked me I would have said I was praying against the devil. This is not true. I
was praying against those humans I considered devilish. My mouth was saying one
thing but my heart was into something else.
I have only begun to grasp
that there is no other ‘them’, there is only the other ‘us’. Frequent failure has
shown me I am not better than the rack of humanity and all that frailty. The holy
law does not require lopsided devotion or partial fulfillment. It is not a
bundle of things but one whole outlook and one full heart. To fall short of one
precept is to run against the grain of the spirit of all. We are all flawed
that way. We do not need the self-righteous indignation of the other. We need
the love. We need the understanding. We need the prayers of one another.
We live in a curious “doing”
phase of Christianity. Billboards and pillars, seminars and self-help books with
“Christ” as the model keep telling us about purpose and plan and strategy and kingdom
winnings. We are not able to sit down and read the truth of our own being
anymore. We are running the other way and making time precious to the hunger
ideal of feeding the cratered human soul. But Christianity is a being thing not
a doing thing. We are not here to morph the world with ‘Christian’ ideals. No one
needs Christ to rule the world. This is not the world He wants. He is looking
for the universe and multiverse inside every human heart. He is looking for
that part of us that is able to see that everlasting light is worth momentary
trouble. He is looking for the hearts that want to be set alight with the fire
of eternal meaningfulness.
To do is not to be. Once you
are you will know what to do. Jesus spent thirty years in absolute obscurity
being. When He finally did something it resonated through all of history. The business
of selling an idea or forming a government are all temporal ideals. The eternal
glory of changing a life or reconnecting a heart with God makes all of heaven
stand up and applaud.
I pray that we always know
and respond to the difference.